Norwegian Long Haul: Current and Future Routes, Summer 2017.

It is by now obvious to remark that the world's aviation market is now at the dawn of a golden age of low-cost long-haul flying. While largely pioneered in parts of Australasia, the fast-expanding boom is currently focused on the North Atlantic market, led by the seemingly now-ubiquitous Norwegian Air Shuttle. 

From its first B787 deliveries, the airline has forayed far and wide, first to Fort Lauderdale and New York JFK, then Bangkok. At the beginning of this year, the young but well-funded airline shocked the Northern Hemisphere with the sudden announcement of a huge capacity increase, made possible by the arrival of brand-new next-generation B737Max jets. Norwegian paired off six northwestern European cities: Belfast, Bergen, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh and Shannon, with three New England airports: Hartford, Providence, and, most surprisingly, Stewart Airport in suburban Westchester County, New York. As can be seen above, the map is now to crowded to follow each individual route line. 

Further complicating comprehension, this route map also has almost as many future destinations as current operations. Over the next twelve months, the ever-growing fleet of red-throated Dreamliners will take to the Scandinavian skies to reach a further four U.S. airports: Austin, Chicago, Denver and Seattle are all scheduled before summer 2018. Norwegian also continues its Southeast Asian expansion with the addition of Gatwick-Singapore in September, going head-to-head with aviation's biggest players in a highly competitive corridor. 

That flight will not be the airline's only super long-haul out of Gatwick. Within the same time frame, Norwegian will also reach its first South American destination, Buenos Aires, from Gatwick. A rather unexpected venture, the route is especially noteworthy not only as Norwegian spreads to yet another continent, but that the airline already has a long-haul base under development at Barcelona, where IAG's brand-new LCLH Level is flying to Buenos Aires, which, furthermore, is in direct competition with legacy flag carrier Aerolineas Argentinas, one of that once-great carrier's few remaining European destinations.

With industry observers already questioning the Norwegian's rapid long-haul expansion and its business practices in general, we'll have to see if Norwegian can really maintain these routes, much less continue its global domination. 

Norwegian Air Shuttle: The Long-Haul Destinations, November 2016

The recent route map of Norwegian Long Haul, the dreamliner-fleet division of Norwegian Air Shuttle, rapidly covering the globe.

The emphasis on dominating the low-fare brackets of the trans-Atlantic trade are clear, with eight American cities served, only three of which are predominantly leisure destinations: Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, and Orlando. Although utilizing some secondary airports like Oakland and BWI, Norwegian has not shied away from primary gateways such as LAX and JFK and other major airports like Newark. As mentioned in the first post this month about Norwegian, Barcelona will soon be added, giving several of these U.S. cities flights from six European airports on Norwegian B787s.

Four Caribbean destinations are also reached, these, interestingly served from these same North American cities: Boston—Guadeloupe and Boston—Martinique began in February 2016 before any flights to Logan from Copenhagen, Oslo, or London Gatwick. The French West Indies are served from New York and Baltimore as well. San Juan and St. Croix are only served from Europe.

The network is far less developed in the easterly direction. Reminiscent of the posts from earlier this month, but one Asian destination is served: Bangkok.

Norwegian Air Shuttle: New Route to Fort Lauderdale from Paris, August 2016

Yesterday's post discussed the acceleration of Newark Airport into an intercontinental gateway beginning around 1990, and the role of a Scandinavian airline in that growth. Here we have a similar circumstance, as the compact Ft. Lauderdale International Airport has grown from a discount, secondary airport into a major intercontinental gateway to balance Miami International in handling trans-ocean traffic into South Florida. 

Ft. Lauderdale's profile was elevated with the appearance of Caribbean and Latin American feeder flights and Canadian snow-bird services. Today, flag carriers now reach Ft. Lauderdale from as far as Colombia, Ecuador, and, since 2014, Brazil. Most recently—and most astonishingly—there is now nonstop service to Dubai, with Emirates commencing non-stop B777 flights this week. Announced barely two months ago, UAE megacarrier chose FLL over Miami as its 11th U.S. gateway due to its inline partnership with Jetblue.

But as impressive as the 14+ flight distances are, a recent development that has greatly raised Ft. Lauderdale as a gateway to Europe has been the arrival of Norwegian Air Shuttle's dreamliners from its Long Haul division. Paris-CDG is the fifth European city that Norwegian is connecting to Broward County, beginning flights this past August. Norwegian will add Barcelona as its sixth non-stop next year. Also announced back in October: British Airways will also start flying from London-Gatwick in 2017, and Condor made the airport part of its nationwide entry into the U.S. market from Frankfurt.