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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

#21

Post by eru »

digi_owl wrote: post #14
chinathrow wrote: post #4

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…

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 without another job lined up would be feasible.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#22

Post by corford »

vanderZwan wrote: post #18
corford wrote: 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…

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.

Perhaps where Norwegian and Ryanair compete on the same routes (which isn't many). But even then, if there's more than a €10 difference in the headline price, most LCC flyers will pick the cheaper one regardless. I think just like with blindness to banner ads on websites, most consumers quickly learn to avoid the dark patterns during check out.

To be honest, Ryanair's new web app is actually not that bad compared to the hostile site they had a few years back.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#23

Post by abrkn »

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.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#24

Post by gjjrfcbugxbhf »

mercurial wrote: post #17
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…

The real thing is Denmark vs Sweden.

And Norway vs Denmark. But they all like each other really it's mainly in good fun.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#27

Post by davidf18 »

chinathrow wrote: post #4

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…

From the Quora article: "It's a relatively new airline, so it doesn't have a long history of union agreements that must be fulfilled. "

All of the US domestic carriers went bankrupt and renegotiated their union agreements, so this doesn't hold.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#28

Post by alkonaut »

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 bookings.

I regularly fly Norwegian but wouldn't fly Ryan again if my life depended on it.

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#29

Post by postsantum »

dev360 wrote: post #26

I love flying Norwegian. I found a round-trip from Ft Lauderdale - Sweden for just $380 bucks in may but you have to be flexible around the dates. You just can't find prices like that with other carriers.

Check WOW Air, they offer even cheaper flight between Europe and USA

Re: How Norwegian Air Upended Travel With Its Cheap Flights

#30

Post by javier2 »

untog wrote: post #20

When 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 add to this, this is very much related to their schedule of keeping the aircraft in the air 3 hours per day more than other airlines.

If they get off schedule, they will have to drop flights or rent an aircraft and skip a flight to catch up.

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