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How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

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Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#31

"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 inste…

For what it's worth, just because one party has a president in office, doesn't mean the other parties, businesses, and special interests stop trying to push their agendas.

I think you've forgotten that.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#32
post #23

It's an amazing airline. Website and mobile apps are perfect. Planes are new and clean. You swipe your card below the entertainment system screen and order from there. Staff, especially when Thai, are outstanding. Prices are low and the "Premium" ticket class has generous room without being excessively expensive.

> You swipe your card below the entertainment system screen and order from there.

Order what? Inflight videos?

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#33
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This just shows that strikes aren't really a good tool in a dynamic economy where you can just spin up companies as necessary, and would need (increasingly complex) legislation to keep them relevant. The right political response should be to strengthen workers bargaining position---run the economy hot enough to turn the labour market into a sellers market, and keep enough social safety net that even just saying No wi…

And ensure that authorities are powerful enough to just make swift decisions about things like this.

"Since this move accomplishes exactly the curcumvention of the strike, we consider the new company bound by the old company's agreements. Oblige by Monday or stop flying in Norway".

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#34

"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 inste…

At what expense of high paying, quality, American jobs?

A huge cost advantage that NAI enjoys on many of their international flights is through a flag-of-convenience scheme. NAI is a Norwegian majority owned company but has established their base of operations for international flying in Ireland. Through this arrangement they are able to hire pilots and cabin crews under contracts and work rules of southeast Asia where wages are low and work rules are less restrictive. You might imagine how cutting costs in that regard might have an impact on quality of service and more importantly SAFETY.

If this precedent is allowed there is no doubt the major American airlines will do the same in the interest of remaining competitive but shockingly airlines in the US have actually resisted this in the interest of the jobs of American people. I can't speak to each airline individually but for example Delta Air Lines directly employs 80,000 people in addition to 10s of thousands of contractors. Multiply that by 3 or 4 and you're looking at a ton of well paying American jobs. Not to mention when is the last time you remember a fatality on a major US airline?

I think the flag-of-convenience scheme leads us down a slippery slope where getting the lowest bidding pilot cadets trumps safety.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#35
I hate flying any cheap airline, at 2m tall I don't fit in typical sardine can seats at all. I always pay more to get a better seat, which I don't mind, but often cheap airlines don't even offer better seat pitch except on exit rows and unless you are lucky you can never count on getting one.

Now that all airlines are getting into the cheap category, I fear eventually I can't fly at all.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#36
post #23

It's an amazing airline. Website and mobile apps are perfect. Planes are new and clean. You swipe your card below the entertainment system screen and order from there. Staff, especially when Thai, are outstanding. Prices are low and the "Premium" ticket class has generous room without being excessively expensive.

Their website is amazing compared to train or bus tickets, and even most airlines.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#37
post #23

It's an amazing airline. Website and mobile apps are perfect. Planes are new and clean. You swipe your card below the entertainment system screen and order from there. Staff, especially when Thai, are outstanding. Prices are low and the "Premium" ticket class has generous room without being excessively expensive.

> You swipe your card below the entertainment system screen and order from there. Order what? Inflight videos?

Snacks, food, alcohol, etc.

IIRC, inflight entertainment is free. Scheduled meal costs extra at time of ticket purchase. Much better to bring your own food, or buy their decent snacks as you get hungry.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#38

I 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…

"Should a carrier established in one country be allowed to offer wages typical of another?"

The chief concern is safety.

America's airline industry especially with the consolidations of United buying Continental and American buying US Airways is dysfunctional. We have no equivalent of Ryan Air or EasyJet in the US and we should.

US domestic carriers should strive to compete with Norwegian offering their prices and stop complaining.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#39

Norwegian is at the better end of the low fare airlines. They don't use shady UI patterns (or ads!) on their website. They don't walk around the aisle selling lottery tickets. And they don't land on third tier airports with ridiculous transfer times to cities. Basically they work like a full service airline, but of course they only work from A to B and don't offer the fancy guarantees you need with more complicated b…

Note that some of their upcoming long haul stuff is to obscure airports: their new flights from Edinburgh are to "Providence/Boston T. F. Green Airport" which is an hour+ away from Boston. (Well, it's a totally reasonable airport for Providence, but marketing it as Boston is dubious!)

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#40
post #7

Norwegian 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…

Companies that have low costs and innovate during a downturn are always the ones to come out the strongest out of the downturn. By the time the big players "return to normal" in an upmarket, those innovators are already in a much better long term position to take them on.
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