Norwegian came from nowhere and built up sun routes out of the UK, explicitly building up D8 on Irish registered aircraft to accomplish this. We see short haul profits and massive long haul losses and start up costs with the strategy now being downsize the short haul operation in favour of the more challenging long haul?

What are we missing here?

Are LGW slots not time of day specific? So the first wave departures and evening arrivals go back into the pot or are reshuffled?

They haven’t been bookable past this weekend for months; all the Manchester-Spain routes come to and end this weekend too.

I understand its Nordics will be reshuffled, with LH taking a larger slice.

Regarding switch from SH to LH - they believe they can get a higher yield on LH in the long run. Apparently doing really well from Gatwick, but want to eek out more if they can.

Fair point but they were talking about feeding long haul with short haul. There's a load of smoke and mirrors here, it reminds me of Air Europe in a few ways.

It seems EDI is privileged. We have Tenerife right through W17/S18, and BCN returns for S18. Lost Malaga, though.

Norwegian today reported its third quarter results for 2017. The net result was 1 billion NOK, an improvement of 4 percent compared to the same quarter previous year. The load factor increased to 92 percent. The passenger development has been positive in all of Norwegian’s key markets, with a significant growth in the U.S. and Spain.

I haven’t yet read the full report but wet leases certainly cost them dearly.

Malaga & Madrid now in booking system for summer 18 ex LGW

BCN now in the booking system from LGW for summer 2018, so i guess more routes will be added over next few days/weeks

Looking at the CAA stats the narrowbody transatlantic regional routes towards end of summer timetable dont make great reading. Is this still too early to judge or are these routes genuinely sustainable - looks like average for some only half or less full. With the low cost model id have thought youd need bums on seats

Heard that LGW is going to get an additional LH route to be announced in the new few weeks, and an additional MAX route (non-LGW).

Point 2 point SWF can be much quicker to downtown than JFK with the stage coach bus that meets inbound aircraft.

The problem from my perspective is two fold, firstly you can’t really go westbound with a full load and even when the aircraft get sat com to allow CPDLC they will still be too heavy to get much above 360, so you have to cap the load.

I think it would be worth taking say 5 or 6 rows out ( loss of 36 seats) and put 2 rows of business class seats restoring 8 seats so a net loss of 28 taking the seating down to 161

The only problem is that on some routes the aircraft do a quick Scandinavia trip between US flights and they tend to be full.

are they operating a short haul programme in summer 18 or winter 18 from LGW ?

Have you looked at their website?

You need to include the significant added weight of business class seats too.

Impressive performance of the B38M on their winter operations, showing the power of the jetstream.

2 days ago:

PVD-SNN, block of 4:52
SNN-PVD, block of 7:30

I see EDI-BDL taking over 7:45 routinely. Latter stages of the flight show a groundspeed of only 250 knots, with up to 625 knots on return. Crazy!

After recently taking a BDL-EDI flight, it was definitely adequate for the journey, and I'd definitely fly a 737 across the Atlantic again.

Yet more expansion with transatlantic flights from Amsterdam, Madrid and Milan:

Newsdesk - Norwegian

Was surprised to see Scandinavian DY flights to BOS now scrapped for S18... whats going on there? BOS often seen as a 'weak' market but not as much as some of those secondary US routes..

Many of the secondary US airports flights are unsurprisingly full this next week and loads are in general improving, I guess it takes time to build the traffic and this is reflected in the prices. Norwegian on board product is superior to the likes of easy,FR & wow, but for 7 hour flights it need to further improve IFE to seat back and a premium section would help, there is only so long you can watch Mr Bean mini movies on an overhead screen !!

they are increasing the number of premium seats on the Dreamliner I gather

I thought Norwegian had free inflight WiFi to negate the need for seat back IFE?

I thought some of the Oct/Nov stats suggested the secondary US loads were worse rather than improving?

Not sure how we deduce that given we cannot make a like for like comparison with the same month last year as the flights only started in June this year.

It is pretty obvious however that October/November loads would be less than summer loads though. If the loads have picked up again in December then great but we will only see if things are improving or not if we can make like for like comparisons.

I would imagine that DY will appreciate that these routes will take some time to grow given the nature of them. I still speak to people now who have no idea they exist which is a shame as there is so much untapped demand there who may well jump at the chance to fly from UK to US and back for under £200.

Not fitted on the 737 Max until they get their first C checks.