Alex On… Did Norwegian bite off more than it can chew?

It seems that low cost long haul operations can only make a profit with low fuel prices and low labor cost. Crews -who are inconvenienced on very long hauls – won’ t have none of it. Hence the strike.

jjlasne – best you check your info source. Nothing to do with long haul. Most domestic flights cancelled.

As you may have read on our news pages here, the strike has now entered its third day.

Flights within Denmark, Norway and Sweden are the ones most affected.

Norwegian’s long-haul flights are not affected by this strike action. But this division has problems of its own.

Having acquired a fleet of new B787s, the carrier cannot utilise them on the routes it had originally planned.

The idea was for Norwegian, besides a few US routes, to open up new destinations in the Far East.

But, with the exception of Bangkok, it never happened. Why ? Because the Russians continue to refuse overflying rights.

Norwegian’s flights to Bangkok take 50 mins longer because it must take a more southerly route to avoid Russian airspace. But if it were to open up routes to China, for example, the extended flight times would be both uneconomic and uncompetitive.

So to make full use of its B787s Norwegian has had to deploy them on the transatlantic.

And if all that wasn’t enough, its Bangkok flights face price competition from the Gulf airlines who are now moving into Scandinavia.