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Norwegian’s mission to expand out of its London Gatwick base continues with its announcement of a new route to Las Vegas. The low cost carrier has been making a bit of a splash on the low cost scene by flying wifi equipped 787 Dreamliners across the Atlantic from various European cities.
The airline is scheduled to commence Paris – USA routes from July this year but is already flying non-stop flights from London to Los Angeles, New York, Oakland and Ft Lauderdale.
With a London – Boston route already scheduled to start later this year, and now with the news that Las Vegas flights will be coming on line too, Norwegian is clearly making big moves to capture the UK leisure traveler’s interest.
Norwegian’s London Gatwick – Las Vegas Service
Norwegian plans to launch its London Las Vegas service from 31 October this year and will operate the route using its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.
The planned schedule looks like this:
DY7107 LGW 12:10 – 15:00 LAS (Mon, Thur)
DY7108 LAS 17:00 – 10:50+1 day LGW (Mon, Thur)
If the departure days aren’t ideal the flight times are pretty good – I like getting in to Vegas with enough time to navigate the chaos of the airport, get to my hotel, freshen up and still have time for a full evening out.
Pricing
Norwegian’s press release says that fares start at £179 ($260) one-way….but they’re actually better than that. In November, for example, the cheapest outbound fare is £179 ($260) but the return can be purchased for just £151.30 ($220):
Norwegian London – Las vegas fares
At a total of £330 ($480) that isn’t a bad fare at all…although all it gets you is a seat on the plane and 1 piece of hand baggage (max weight 10kg/22lbs). If you want to put luggage in the hold it will cost you £25/$36 per bag in either direction and if you want food included it will cost you even more.
Norwegian say that, if you want to take checked baggage and want to have food on the flight, you’re better off buying a ticket that already includes those extras (which comes to £430/$623 round-trip).
To me that’s not a particularly great deal and I’m more than happy to pack light and bring my own food for the journey – it’s going to be better than whatever an airline serves up anyway!
Interestingly, if you take Norwegian out of the mix and take a look at other non-stop fares for London (all airports) to Las Vegas in November, this is what you see:
That makes Norwegian look pretty good.
The Aircraft
As mentioned, Norwegian will be flying its new 787-9 Dreamliners on this route and this is what that aircraft’s seat map looks like (click to enlarge):
The airline has gone the way of most other airlines and not spared too much though for their customers’ comfort when it comes to how much personal space they give you. According to SeatGuru the seats in the Dreamliner Economy class cabin (they have a premium cabin too) are just 17.2″ wide and have a seat pitch of 31″.
If those dimensions seem tight it’s because they are but it’s worth putting them in context. When I did my review of Economy Class seat sizes across the Atlantic a lot of the full-service airlines didn’t come out too much better.
Almost all of the trans-Atlantic full-service airlines offer just 31″ of seat pitch in their economy class cabins and a great number of them (American, Lufthansa, Turkish, Aer Lingus amongst others) only offer the same amount of seat width as Norwegian too.
It’s not like you’re going to be that much more comfortable flying with a supposedly more upscale airline.
Bottom Line
As I always seem to say when it comes to considering low cost carriers, the most important thing you need to do (when comparing fares) is to make sure you’re comparing like for like – don’t forget to include costs for things like seat assignments, meals and baggage (if you’re going to need any of those things).
That’s the only way you’ll be able to make a true comparison.
If you can minimize the add-on fees that airlines like Norwegian charge then you can get some pretty good fares and, as I have hopefully shown above, the Gatwick – Las Vegas route appears to be one where those good fares exit.
