It cost my girlfriend more to get to the Gatwick airport than it cost to fly to Madrid on Norweigan. We live in South London, let that sink in.
How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
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Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#12I Love flying with Norwegian. Painful to say as a swede but they are my go-to low price airline.
I mistook a Swedish neighbour for being Norwegian, afterwards I felt stupid for this as clearly I had not been paying attention. (Her name begins with 'N' so that may be the cause of the 'senior moment'.) As an English person living in England I have no idea whether getting someone's country 'almost right' is a hurtful thing. Is the Norwegian vs Swedish thing real? If so, is it for the reason I give - not paying atte…
Swedish vs Norwegian is mostly playful banter. Our lives, culture, values and language are all very similar, so being mistaken for the other is no big deal as it doesn't have any particularly negative connotations attached.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#13For anyone travelling to Europe from the bay area, you can't beat Norwegian. They have nonstop flights from OAK to Stockholm and Oslo on brand new 787's for as cheap as <$300 each way. It's another $50 to anywhere in Europe from those two cities on the budget lines like Ryanair.
The utility of that depends on what your priorities are. Low-cost and longer flights, plus checking in again when you change airlines? Norwegian Air is good. If you want to get on a plane, go to sleep, and wake up at your destination, a extra few hundred dollars is worth it to some people.
How are they 'longer'? Fuel efficient cruise speed for an airliner is very much constant. All airlines try to stick to that, unless the flight is late and makes up to meet the landing slot.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#14I just leave those here in case you wonder how Norwegian works. They have brand new planes for efficiency on one hand but on the other, they screw their staff similar as to other budget airlines. https://www.quora.com/How-is-Norwegian-Air-so-cheap https://skift.com/2016/10/10/norwegian-air-accused-by-critic... "Norwegian’s modus operandi does raise interesting questions. Should a carrier established in one country be…
One asshole move in recent history back in Norway was that when the pilots were threatening to strike over long shifts or some such, the company spun up a subsidiary, moved all the pilot employments to it, and leased foreign pilots to fly domestic routes.
All under the pretext that this was not circumventing the strike, because the pilots were not working for them but for the newly created subsidiary.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#15For anyone travelling to Europe from the bay area, you can't beat Norwegian. They have nonstop flights from OAK to Stockholm and Oslo on brand new 787's for as cheap as <$300 each way. It's another $50 to anywhere in Europe from those two cities on the budget lines like Ryanair.
The utility of that depends on what your priorities are. Low-cost and longer flights, plus checking in again when you change airlines? Norwegian Air is good. If you want to get on a plane, go to sleep, and wake up at your destination, a extra few hundred dollars is worth it to some people.
Norwegian will check you through onto their own short-haul flights.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#16"The U.S. Department of Transportation, besieged with opposition from domestic airlines, labor unions, and other interest groups, took three years to approve Norwegian’s transatlantic plan."
This is the same government under Obama and Democrats that allowed for consolidation of United buying Continental and American buying US Air which resulted in less competition.
The Democrats used to represent regular people instead of favoring special interests that result in higher prices.
Instead of allowing the legacy carriers to slow down Norwegian and other innovators, the legacies should copy them. They have much more capital and they can make it happen if they want to.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#17I Love flying with Norwegian. Painful to say as a swede but they are my go-to low price airline.
I mistook a Swedish neighbour for being Norwegian, afterwards I felt stupid for this as clearly I had not been paying attention. (Her name begins with 'N' so that may be the cause of the 'senior moment'.) As an English person living in England I have no idea whether getting someone's country 'almost right' is a hurtful thing. Is the Norwegian vs Swedish thing real? If so, is it for the reason I give - not paying atte…
The real thing is Denmark vs Sweden.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#18Norwegian borrowed the same play book Michael O'Leary (of Ryanair) used ~6 years earlier: putting in a big, bold order for new Boeing aircraft just as the aviation market was tanking (due to 9/11 in O'Leary's case and the GFC in Norwegian's). Anti-cycle is the cheapest time to buy lots of new planes (if you have the balls and investor backing to do it). Underneath it all is the same operating model that allowed low c…
A big difference with Ryanair and other low-cost airlines is that Norwegian stays away from dark UI patterns in their website/app, and also doesn't use the "make it uncomfortable enough that you consider paying more, but not so uncomfortable that it stops you from using it" tactics in general. I think they'll be much better at customer retention.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#19For anyone travelling to Europe from the bay area, you can't beat Norwegian. They have nonstop flights from OAK to Stockholm and Oslo on brand new 787's for as cheap as <$300 each way. It's another $50 to anywhere in Europe from those two cities on the budget lines like Ryanair.
Some details:
- They fly out of Oakland airport, OAK, not San Francisco Airport.
- They don't fly non-stop to Oslo, apparently. Itineraries to Oslo from OAK connect in London, Gatwick.
- OAKLGW September 18th - 24th indeed $499
- OAKLGW July 3rd - 10th $1,189. So you'll still want to buy tickets well in advance.
Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights
#20When things go well with Norwegian it's a fantastic airline. But I've witnessed some absolutely awful experiences others have had - fights delayed 11 hours, some even more than that, leaving everyone stranded in the airport. Other times they've contracted out flights to a no-name airline that uses ancient planes with no in flight entertainment.
I'm happy to take Norwegian when I'm travelling by myself, as I'm content to take the risk. But if I'm travelling with family I'll usually avoid them.