Following a settling in period, Norwegian Airlines has now announced that they will add 90,000 seats from Edinburgh, Dublin and Shannon airports to their winter schedule which runs from 28 October to 31 March 2019.

The airline began with three routes from Edinburgh Airport to Providence, Stewart New York and to Hartford.

While the Providence and Hartford flights will stop later this year, the Stewart route is strongly supported and will be increased to a daily service with flights from £149.

Stewart Airport is as yet small, but this has the added benefits of short security queues. It is very easy to get from the airport to downtown Manhattan by bus or train, and as the airport is set in up state New York, you see very pretty countryside en route. This might make for an alternative New York based holiday in itself. We just travelled to New York courtesy of Norwegian and the flights were full both ways, and it appears that this is the route which has strongest demand from the rearrangement of routes now planned.

The Boeing 737 MAX planes are newly fitted out with an average age of under 4 years old, making them greener than many rivals. No, there is no upper class or business class, but you get what you pay for. You can choose to pre-order a meal or you could actually stop at one of the diners in the nearby town ahead of boarding your flight which leaves Stewart at 9.25pm.

There is free inflight Wifi allowing you to access some entertainment through your own tablet or phone. Norwegian’s numbers are growing impressively with 362,613 more passengers choosing Norwegian in March 2018  than in the same month last year. Even though the airline admits that the date Easter fell this year impacts on the March figures, it is still many planes carrying many passengers to their destinations.

In Edinburgh we can fly to Barcelona with Norwegian as well as Stewart International New York.

Thomas Ramdahl, Chief Commercial Officer at Norwegian said: “Consumers can now benefit from more high-quality flights to the USA this winter as we focus on boosting services that reflect strong passenger demand.

“We’re giving passengers on both sides of the Atlantic more affordable choice, so we’re delighted to increase the number of flights that brings the US east coast closer to Ireland and Scotland this winter.”

Norwegian also operates the first transatlantic flights in Cork Airport’s 50-year history with a three-weekly service to Providence and the only nonstop services from Belfast to the USA in the busier summer season. Flights from Cork to Providence and Belfast to New York will continue through October and have been received positively by travellers on both sides of the Atlantic. Norwegian will continue to assess its route schedule for summer 2019.

Norwegian is the world’s sixth largest low-cost airline, carrying around 30 million passengers per year to more than 150 global destinations. The airline has around 150 aircraft in its fleet with an average age of 3.6 years, making it one of the world’s youngest fleets – the airline also has more than 150 additional new aircraft on order.

Website | + posts

Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.