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Norwegian Air update

From crusty old Arthur Frommer hisself:

At Last: A Big and Well-Financed New Airline is About to Charge Budget-Level Prices for Round-Trip Flights Across the Atlantic

A major recent development has been the decision by the low-cost trans-Atlantic airline called Norwegian to greatly increase the number of flights it offers from both New York City and Los Angeles to London’s Gatwick Airport. A year-or-so ago, that well-financed (Norway is a rich country, enjoying offshore oil fields) airline entered the trans-Atlantic market rather gingerly, testing the demand for cheap trans-Atlantic prices. Apparently, the response has been so positive that it is now making a plunge into greatly increased trans-Atlantic services.

If you will go its website (Norwegian.com), you will find that you can often fly in the coming months round-trip between New York and London for as little as $600 round-trip (and for correspondingly-low prices from Los Angeles). That price is generally at least $200 and more less than other airlines charge on the same routes. So if you haven’t yet made your arrangements to fly the Atlantic this summer and fall, you might want to take a look at what Norwegian is offering—not only to London, but to numerous other European gateways as well.

Keep in mind, of course, that those ultra-low fares aren’t available on every date, and you may have to adjust your travel plans accordingly. But if you choose the right combination of dates on Norwegian, you can cross the Atlantic round-trip for the kind of price we used to enjoy several years ago. And you can go to other destinations—the Scandinavian capitals, in particular, but also Paris—for correspondingly-low prices.

Posted by
8319 posts

If you can fly out of New York JFK, Los Angeles, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale or Oakland, you can be rewarded on Norwegian Air Shuttle. You can catch connecting flights all over Europe from their gateway cities of Oslo and Copenhagen

We have reservations Orlando-Copenhagen and from Bergen-Orlando last of August for $837 round trip each. We're also flying Copenhagen to Oslo for $71 each after we take a Baltic Cruise.

Airfares simply cannot be beat. And they're flying new Boeing 787's--not junky old planes. We need all the competition possible to minimize ever increasing airfares to Europe.

Posted by
10 posts

Just a heads up...some major airlines do not yet
have a baggage transfer agreement with Norwegian Air!
If you have a US airline to the connecting point,
it is possible that you might have to reclaim your
bags there, and recheck them in again with Norwegian Air.

Allow LOTS of connection time if this is the case,
and double check with your domestic US airline
if they can check bags onto Norwegian Air.
Don't assume that your travel agency, or
cruise company will have checked on that for you,
or even advised you of it!

Posted by
44 posts

We just got back from Italy flying Norwegian Air Shuttle from Rome to Oakland, Calif. and back. Be sure to follow their luggage weight and size guidelines. Don't sweat it too much as long as you are the correct weight and your bag is not stuffed and bulging it will fit in the overhead bin. I told the ticketing agent that my bag might be overweight and he thanked me for that bit of info and directed me over to a table area to redistribute the contents of my bag. As I was doing that, I saw the man in line behind me get charged $100.00 for his baggage being overweight. So we moved some of our electronics into our Scottevest lightweight jackets and figured they saved us $200.00 in baggage fees even though the jackets felt awkward and bulky. Overall our fares were less than half of the price of what our friends paid from the East coast for a bargain fare on another airline. We did pay $42.00 each for a meal, which was worth it to us at the time for the convenience. Airplane food is airplane food! When we got to Rome and went straight to immigration without having to get our bags we discovered only 8 people in front of us in the line. Soon we had hundreds behind us. Rick is certainly correct about the convenience of carry-on only when you arrive in a foreign country. For the return flights we checked our bags since we each had accumulated about 6-8 pounds of stuff and did not want to carry any luggage until we got home. That Rick Steve bag that folds into the pouch holds a ton of stuff! It weighed 12 pounds and so we checked it too.

Posted by
257 posts

I can echo the low prices from Oakland. Am flying in October from Oakland to Oslo and my round trip price is $438.