Norwegian’s Boeing 737-800 plane can be a typical sight within the skies above Stockholm as soon as once more.
Norwegian’s revival appears to be like set to proceed because the airline pronounces the reopening of a crew base at Stockholm Arlanda, the largest and busiest airport in Sweden. Round 270 cabin crew can be stationed on the airport from April forward of a busy summer time season. Recruitment is underway.
The information comes just some weeks after the Swedish authorities scrapped its requirement for vacationers to indicate a unfavorable Covid-19 check on the border. With journey restrictions in Scandinavia now at their lightest for the reason that pandemic started, it appears a great time to be launching new routes.
From 15 to 54 locations
At current, Norwegian flies to simply 15 locations from Arlanda, together with three home routes. However throughout the summer time season, the airways plans 54 direct routes to locations within the Nordic area and elsewhere in Europe.
“Arlanda is one in every of our most vital airports. With 270 new faces at Arlanda, it’s with pleasure that we will state that Norwegian is now severely again in Sweden once more,” stated airline CEO Geir Karlsen in a press release.
Extra competitors to/from Sweden
Competitors is ready to accentuate from Arlanda as Norwegian returns to do battle with SAS, Ryanair and Eurowings on many common leisure routes in France, Italy and Spain.
Of the 54 routes deliberate, solely a handful don’t have any direct competitors. They appear set to be Bastia (BIA), Budapest (BUD), Catania (CTA), London Gatwick (LGW), Sarajevo (SJJ), Santorini (JTR) and Tel Aviv (TLV).
The brand new Norwegian is targeted on short-haul
Stockholm was an vital base for each short-haul and long-haul companies for the “previous” Norwegian. However the days of Norwegian serving locations like Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles and New York are lengthy gone.
Following years of monetary bother intensified by the pandemic, the restructured low-cost provider now focuses on short-haul routes in Norway, inside Scandinavia and to/from Europe.
The cautious strategy appears to be paying off thus far. Regardless of the emergence of the Omicron variant, greater than 930,000 passengers flew with Norwegian throughout December 2021, with its planes 71% full on common.
The reopening of the bottom means Norwegian may have a major presence within the Swedish capital as soon as once more, however it nonetheless falls properly in need of the pre-pandemic interval. Norwegian plans to supply 1.74 million seats from Arlanda this summer time in contrast with 2.56 million throughout the summer time of 2019.