Norwegian Now Selling 400,000+ Seats Gatwick – USA

Norwegian, the European low-cost carrier I seem to write about quite a bit, has released what it’s calling “a record number of seats for holiday-seeking Brits looking to jet away this summer to the U.S.”

Norwegian’s headline reads “Nearly 500,000 seats to the U.S. available this summer from £135” while, in fact, the actual number of seats is 425,000…. so Norwegian and I appear to differ on the definition of “nearly”,

Anyway, that aside, what exactly does Norwegian have on offer?

The seats that have been released are for Norwegian’s direct flights between London Gatwick and the US, which include Norwegian’s two newest destinations – Boston and San Francisco-Oakland and this is what the airline had to say:

Almost 80,000 seats are up for grabs between London and Boston from March 27, while San Francisco-Oakland, which launches on May 12, has almost 45,000 seats on sale this summer. Popular family-favourite flights from Gatwick to Orlando also return this summer with 35,000 seats from as low as £199 one way.

Norwegian Prices

The good news first.

There appear to be some genuinely reasonable fares on offer for anyone hoping to book a flight over the Easter break. Take Boston for example:

On the outbound you can book a one-way fare from London Gatwick for €184/£144…..

….and, if you’re careful with your return date, you can turn that into a round-trip for just €337/£263 per person:

Now that’s a very good deal.

You still need to be careful when it comes to extra fees (checked baggage, seat assignments etc…) but that’s still a very good fare over Easter.

Outside of the Easter break, however, the other popular times to fly aren’t so low-cost.

The highly trumpeted route between Gatwick and Oakland for example comes in at around €832/£650 per person:

If you’d like to take the kids to Orlando the fares in the summer vacations the fares come to around €821/£641 per person….

…and that’s if you’re lucky enough to be able to cherry-pick your dates. It will cost significantly more if your dates aren’t so flexible.

I you’d like to visit LA over the summer the prices get a bit better. The best round-trip price in August comes in at around €678/£530…and you can get that lower if you’re in a position to return in early September:

Interestingly, while none of these fares are particularly low-cost they do appear to be cheaper than most (if not all) of the full cost carriers….but that’s only assuming you’re not going to want to check any bags and aren’t going to do anything that’s going to incur any fees. 

Norwegian 787-9 Dreamliner

Norwegian will be flying its new 787-9 Dreamliner to its US destinations but, for one reason or another, they haven’t published a seat map on their website. Luckily, when you create a dummy reservation, you can pull up the seat map for the Dreamliner when selecting seats (click to enlarge):

An extra leg room seat costs $25 one way:

That could be a worthwhile investment if, as I suspect, the 787-9 Dreamliner has the same seat dimensions as the smaller 787-8:

Bottom Line

When comparing fares between the carriers 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.

Truthfully, if you’ve left it till now to look for fights over the summer vacations you’ve really left it too late to get the better deals. Airlines ramp up their fares considerably when they know they have a captive market (parents with kids in school) so prices start out high when they’re first released and then, generally, only get higher as the summer approaches.

Still, if you can keep the add-on fees to a minimum, there are some good fares to be had on Norwegian (when comparing them to the regular, full-service airlines)…how long those fares are going to be around for is a whole other matter.