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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

#91

Post by robocat »

corford wrote: post #46
mtgx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is definitely true although in Norwegian's case they also benefited from some lucky timing: the GFC happened to occur just as Boeing were developing new aircraft that would finally be capable of offering low enough ops costs for the LCC model to work on longer sector times. I doubt too that Norwegian foresaw how long oil prices would remain low when they made the order. Norwegian are where they are today thanks…

Norway sells a lot of oil. As a country owning a large airline is good diversification?

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#92

Post by bsimpson »

aphextron wrote: post #6

For 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.

I've been curious about Norwegian for years, but I can never actually find flights on them. As I recall, they had like one for a week from Oakland and it was always full. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly, or maybe I was choosing the wrong destination, but I've never been able to find an itinerary worth booking.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#93

Post by saryant »

davidf18 wrote: post #65
_acme wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you "encourage US domestic carriers to change the way they operate so that they can match the Norwegian fares while retaining American jobs." I think the point is that that is impossible.

I don't agree. The consolidation of major carriers under Obama administration (United buying Continental, and American buying US Air) has reduced competition and thus higher fares, worse service. They don't fly out of regional airports at least in NYC I think that is rare. I"ll bet there are a lot of operational issues. Delta, United and others own low-cost carriers (the famous United case where the senior was dragge…

> the famous United case where the senior was dragged off the plane screaming and kicking was not on United but a low cost fully owned subsidiary carrier of United

United does not own Republic Airways and they are not a subsidiary of United Continental Holdings (United's parent). Republic is its own airline operating flights under contract for United, Delta and American.

The legacies by and large do not own the regional carriers, nor are those airlines intended to be low-cost carriers. The differences primarily lie in the aircraft operated and result from union contracts that inhibit the legacies from profitably operating smaller (non-mainline) aircraft.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#95

Post by kristofferR »

maaaats wrote: post #12
Theodores wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, it's like being called a Canadian as an American.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#96

Post by coredog64 »

davidf18 wrote: post #65
_acme wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you "encourage US domestic carriers to change the way they operate so that they can match the Norwegian fares while retaining American jobs." I think the point is that that is impossible.

I don't agree. The consolidation of major carriers under Obama administration (United buying Continental, and American buying US Air) has reduced competition and thus higher fares, worse service. They don't fly out of regional airports at least in NYC I think that is rare. I"ll bet there are a lot of operational issues. Delta, United and others own low-cost carriers (the famous United case where the senior was dragge…

In good years, airlines have some of the lowest profit margins of any industry. Maybe instead of allowing a bunch of crappy carriers to come and go, it would be better to allow consolidation into a few majors. Ticket prices might be somewhat higher, but they would still be more affordable than they were when the industry was fully regulated.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#97

Post by prostoalex »

bronco21016 wrote: post #34
davidf18 wrote: post #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 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 whe…

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

Are they high-paying because of the time and effort it takes to procure necessary skills (anesthesiologists) or are they high-paying through artificial throttling of the supply and monopolistic anti-competitive practices (taxi medallions)?

One is the boon to the economy, another one is rent-seeking and employs a broken window fallacy to justify itself.

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

So far pilot safety has been associated with the number of hours flown, not the specific rates one was paid for those hours. If somebody proves that, given the same number of hours flown, a higher-paid pilot produces more safety per capita, FAA regulations for acquiring the commercial/ATP licenses can be modified accordingly.

Moreover, things are not all rainbows and unicorns in the airline world, especially once you start drilling into those "contractors" you mentioned http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/pilots-can-earn-less-...

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#98

Post by dingaling »

alkonaut wrote: post #28

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…

Norwegian now offer connecting flights but charge a fee if you select a connection versus the same two flights unconnected.

https://www.norwegian.com/uk/booking/booking-information/con...

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#99

Post by dingaling »

alkonaut wrote: post #28

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…

Norwegian now offer connecting flights but charge a fee if you select a connection versus the same two flights unconnected.

https://www.norwegian.com/uk/booking/booking-information/con...

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#100

Post by coredog64 »

_acme wrote: post #61
valuearb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the company just fire the strikers and directly hire replacements?

In the US, this is often possible (see the Air Traffic Controllers situation), but I think in many countries in Europe, it's not always legal.

ATC was a different kettle of fish. As federal employees they were prohibited from striking, and the strike allegedly caused a public safety issue. If you break the law to strike, you get no protection.

(Police and school teachers have similar requirements in their contracts and will use "sick-outs" to apply pressure without a full strike)

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