I flew with Norwegian on 4 return flights between MAN > TFS last November/December and on every flight... there was less than 25 people.

I guess maybe the advertising hasn't been the Best? I've barely seen any adverts for these flights at all.

I would say though that Monarch were probably one of, if not the biggest operator of the main Mediterranean Sun routes from MAN, they operated the main ones twice daily pretty often and had larger aircraft than the rest.

To balance that, JSCL, over a similar period I flew Norwegian AGP-BHX and all flights were at least c 70-80% about 4 sectors including January 2017. It may vary route by route. It's a pity they've gone as I liked using Norwegian.

As I recall, Norwegian announced their flights between MAN and TFS about 6 weeks ahead. The emptiest flight I had was end of November, with 16 people in all. Service was great though... :)

Interestingly I also flew back from TFS with Vueling just recently and that flight was easily running at around 50-60% LF.

https://uploadir.com/u/oikm0iwl

There was an article in the trade press this week from Norwegians head of UK sales saying that the short haul network was being reviewed as there's simply too much capacity in the UK market and yields are too low, as we've seen with Monarchs increased pax but reduced revenue.

i tell people in work about norwegian short haul. they've never heard about them. yet, even then they just use easyjet or ryanair !
i cant fathom it

i haven't used them long haul

Obviously I know who Norwegian are and of course I know of Norwegian and it's operations but it's becoming a strange phenomena when relatives and work colleagues having flown with them asking me 'have you ever flown with Norwegian, there very good you know' which I reply 'sure I know of them but I have never flown with the airline'.

So I think many on here would be quite surprised how much Norwegian is becoming increasingly etched into people's minds.

Will I ever fly with Norwegian?

Being a bit cynical though but I am tempted to try Norwegian especially from LGW to Buenos Airies but I always think I am going to find myself in a 'Monarch' situation.

Short haul was their moneymaker, keeping things on track as long haul bled red ink badly. So do we hope long haul is suddenly super-profitable.....?

I'd say that's the problem.

You see adverts on TV for easyJet, Ryanair and Jet2 - even Monarch had a TV ad campaign earlier this year - but nothing for Norwegian. Go back to the late-90's and early-2000's when the LCC revolution was in full swing you had easyJet getting lots of publicity through the ITV show 'Airline' (anyone remember that?) and Ryanair had adverts at the start and end of weather forecasts on Sky News like Qatar do now as well as their adverts in newspapers that were created in-house. You also had Sir Stelios and Michael O'Leary hitting the headlines and becoming well-known for their respective positions.

Unless I've been looking in the wrong places, I've not seen similar levels of advertising or publicity for Norwegian. It's as though you only know they offer those routes too if you go looking for them or have an interest/work in aviation.

Funny how carriers start new routes, some quite innovative, then scrap them/reduce frequencies a few months later, all because they cannot be bothered to adverise them sufficiently. BE's LCY-CWL (scrapped) and LCY-EXT (down to just once/day) are examples that come to mind.

Seems that it isn't just BE!

Exactly, how can the non-aviation general public be expected to know about new services if they are never advertised?

Some of the many flight comparison sites now available? Times are a changing...

The fact they are dropping the Med routes from BHX and MAN and want to expand long haul at LGW by possibly using short haul slots answers your question perhaps.

The name cant help. If you know them (as everyone here will) you know them and its fine.

But if you don't then you'd probably think that they just flew to Norway. Same way as you'd expect Air France to take you to France. You're probably not going to be thinking canaries from BHX or MAN.

I would guess that a larger proportion of their bookings comes from the trade or through affiliate / comparison rather then direct bookings compared with U2 or FR. Though personally i much prefer DY.

Didnt BK even state they were at one point talking about changing the name, although dont think that was too recent now?

lee757
Brexit will soon fix the problem - it will reduce capacity and increase prices. Simples. :mad:

Brexit has nothing to do with it.
What Michael O'Leary is saying is not a million miles away from reality.
Norwegian business model does not work. Massive expansion
Cheap labour....they do not make money....if they can't make money
Now while the oil price is cheap what will happen when the oil price does rise.

Norwegians short haul operations around Europe and esotfrom/to Scandinavian does very well and is profitable.

The problem at LGW is lack of slots, if you are up against easy with say 4 flights a day to AGP and you only have one, they can price against that rotation denying you a profit, whilst hiking the the price of the other rotations that you don't compete with.

The problem in the North of England is somewhat different, there is over capacity on many routes so yields are lower to start with, this part of the UK is very very price sensitive on bucket & spades routes.

People will readily fly at very unsocial hours to save a £5 a head, which is another £5 to spend on. Booze in the resort, many know that Ryanair is crap, but they can put up with being treated like dirt if they can save £20 a head ( or think they can) !!

75% of all Thomas Cooks bogus holiday sickness claim come from Manchester/Merseyside, there is a mind set in this part of the world for many that us best summed up in the saying " they know the price of everything and the value of nothing" so Norwegians far superior product offering if costing even a few £s more will not find enough takers.

Sounds like somebodies looking for excuses :{

Bit of regional racism there Sir and a inaccurate generalisation. My local airport at Stansted has a highly significant number of the great unwashed supping great quantities of lager with a bacon sandwich at 6am.

Yes, quite inaccurate comment from INKJET.

The gap that now exists at airports excluding LGW, is afternoon/ early evening flights to the Costas. Not everyone wants or can get to a flight at 06.00. Norwegian operated flights in this gap at Manchester as did Monarch. Together they are a big loss. Such flights are needed all year round.
Additionally comments about Norwegian's lack of advertising seems to be something common to businesses run by people from that area of Scandinavia. For example; A restaurant here which has had a good reputation and name for years, has changed hands and name. No advertising has or is taking place. Even the sign directing you to the restaurant has gone. They are relying on word of mouth.

IB4138 Re advertsing The company I work for does NO advertsing at all and does very well on referals, advertising can and will eat into your budget very quickly, Ryanair is a past master at getting business by publicity and it doesn`t have to be good publicity either just get your name known over and over again.

Probably already been mentioned but it’s all in the name unfortunately Norwegian suggests fly to Norway so without advertising and even with to some extent your already on a loosing battle don’t get me wrong Norwegian is not alone in my opinion there are a few examples and one that I can never understand is AerLingus it’s fine if it were an Irish domestic airline but when you are looking for Americans and Europeans to book not only do they not know what the words are they can’t spell it but I have the same worry for the new low cost airline setting up at Stansted next year Primera Air now I’m don’t pretend to be the sharpest tool in the box but I get confused when spelling it and don’t even know if I pronounce correctly so to me if you want to attract passengers from the start with out confusing then you need to get the name right don’t have a name you find it hard to spell don’t have a name of a country or region unless it’s your national country and don’t have a name that suggests that you only fly to the country in your name so to conclude a nice simple name that is recognised globally and easy to spell is the way forward

I think Ryanair works on the old adage that all publicity is good publicity.

What! So all airlines have to spell their name in a nice English name! Aer Lingus are Irish and spell their name in Irish the language of the country. What now, people want Lufthansa, Qantas, Delta and Iberia to change their names to German National Airlines, Australia National Airlines, America National Airlines or Spanish National Airlines and how dare Air Canada call their airline Rouge it should be red. Few people put airline names in search engines they put the route in. Search engines are becoming better at giving alternative cities like showing both GLA and EDI or all LON airports.

Norwegian are from Norway and celebrated that. Why should they change their name so people who are thick can use them. What do they change their name to? Go Airlines, Fly Airlines or some rubbish like that, that isn’t their heritage of being Norwegian!

I didn’t say an airline HAD to do anything I said in my opinion and you have just proven one of my points in the spelling of AER Lingus and the point I was making is to joe public looking to book a bucket and spade flight from LGW to ALC will automatically think Norwegian will offer flights to Norway just like KFC are unlikely to sell veggie burger so a vegetarian is unlikely to go in and ask when they can get a fillet of fish next door at McDonalds

I don’t know what your point is listing
Lufthansa
Delta
Iberia
Qantas
They are all well established brands but to some extent again you prove my point if any of the above tried to launch UK to Europe sun destinations WITH OUT advertising they yes they would struggle the same as Norwegian have this is simply due to people knowing 5he originality of the brand and know roughly where they fly for example I would not look at any of them if I was booking LGW to ALC so again you prove me right.

So if you have finished with your rant and want to read my post again feel free
Just a gentle reminder my post is about established airlines from other countries setting up in the UK and new airlines with confusing names to the general UK public
Nothing about established airlines changing their names.

Sorry just to make it a bit more simple for you as you obviously know nothing about brands or marketing

Question

Ask an America where British Airlines fly answer will be the UK
Ask a British citizen where American Airlines fly answer will be America
Ask a British or American where air canada fly they will say Canada

So let’s try again ask any of the above where do Norwegian fly I bet over 90% will say Norway.

Simple keep the country out of the name i:e Easyjet, Wizz, Ryanair

Nope ... To the average American UK is called 'England' ... British Airways oinly fly to England.

No London lol!

Rather sweeping and inaccurate statment there really.

Let's not forget that the North West has the largest air market outside of London, with approx 32m passengers per year. That scale would not have been built up on crap yields for the pure s**t and giggles of it. Airlines are not charity cases.

Let's look at fares too shall we:, using Google flights as an example as it can be accessed by everyone easily

May 28th Malaga round trip for a few days:

LGW has the cheapest starting price of £156
BHX has the cheapest starting price of £133
MAN has the cheapest price starting price of £219
BRS has the cheapest starting price of £23
LPL has the cheapest starting price of £152

Same dates, Alicante:

LGW £156
MAN £185
BHX £233
BRS £171
LPL £168

PMI:

BRS £187
MAN £197
BHX £172
LGW £153
LPL £173

There is also a pretty similar story over the winter too on a fair few dates I looked at. Do those prices suggest that the north west singularly has an issue with yield? Overcapacity? Seems on par or better with the U.K. To be honest!

Also, one thing to consider is on board sales. For both Ryanair and Easyjet, the north west also has some of the best on board sales figures, which further boosts the airlines profitability. I know the southerners like to laugh at the Northern counties spending habits, but the airlines love it!

Branding is a side issue, if you search for LON-Spain and Norwegian is alongside TUI, Thomas Cook and BA, you rather quickly think “Wow, Norwegian fly to Spain.” Aer Lingus at Gatwick were a bit part player and failed whereas DY threw serious money in to gain scale.

So do QANTAS only fly to Queensland and Northern Territories?

Outside of the "homeland" UK-Scandinavia market, I do not think Norwegian have made any tangible head-way on short-haul. Their strategy seems to be based purely on having the cheapest price by far in internet search engines on routes like LGW-AGP, LGW-DBV etc and then they wonder why their yields are low in the UK market. It's nuts - they do not even seem to be tracking competitor pricing and pitching £x below it as they are quite often (from the web searches when I've been booking flights) way way below the competition.

No but once again ask most people where Qantas fly to and most would say Australia.

I’m bringing this to an end because some people on here have no idea how important branding and marketing is when bringing an existing brand from one country to another.
I’m not explaining myself anymore but trust me it’s part of my job so I know
One day the some on here may catch up and understand or maybe not :ugh:

Thank god it´s evident that with 12 North American destinations bookable with Aer Lingus, North American´s ability to spell is better than yours... Lufthansa is established? What does that even mean? Should I infer that Aer Lingus is not despite it being older than Luftahansa (in its current form). Finally, Aer Lingus is simplified (anglicised) for the more thick amongst us, Air Fleet in Irish is actually aer loingeas.

Listen I can’t make it more simple than this

Who is going to sell more carpets A or B?

A carpets R us
B Mr sanders ltd

It’s not rocket science
Please let’s get back on track with this thread

I must admit I have spoken with quite a few people who were slightly put off from booking with Norwegian to destinations in Spain.

They seemed to think it was a bit odd that an airline called Norwegian was flying between Gatwick and Alicante.

I side with those who think branding may be an issue, as is awareness. I often get asked by friends (due to my airline background) questions along the lines of "I've found cheap seats to Spain on a company called Norwegian. Are they alright - I've never heard of them?" or "Why does an airline called Norwegian fly from Gatwick to Spain?" This of course could explain why, if the posts above are correct, they sell cheaper seats than the competitors as, as we all know, there is a large swathe of the public who would travel with an airline branded as Totters Independent Trading if the price was right.

Quick question................. flying from CPH-LGW in 2 weeks time after spending a few days in Sweden and training it to CPH for a few days.

When does online checkin open for this as slightly confusing.

As well as poor brand awareness, I've always found it hard to work out where they actually fly; the website was never the best. It doesn't help that it'll offer you ridiculous connections via Scandinavia at immense price. If the first thing it offered you was EDI - AMS at immense cost and with a 10 hour flight via Oslo, why would you bother carrying on to find that actually, they do also fly direct flights from there to... I don't actually know; Spain or wherever.

If you dig deep enough into their website then yes, it does tell you. But even then it can be flawed. For example; it used to tell you you could fly from Tallinn to Edinburgh, but if you went in to book it what you'd find is that yes you can, but you can't get back...

Quite agree. The trick is to scroll down to the foot of the home page and click on the Where We Fly link. You will find a drop down menu of origin airports, and a choice of direct or transit, which always defaults to transit. Then you can see what direct routes are available from your chosen airport, what months, and the best fare.