Following this week's success with the US Department of Transportation (DOT), Norwegian (Oslo Gardermoen) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bjørn Kjos has announced plans to open two more pilot and crew bases in each of the United States and Europe during the course of next year.
“In October this year, Norwegian announced it would open its first U.S. pilot base at Fort Lauderdale International," he told Routes Online in an interview. "Now that we finally have our DOT approval for NAI - Norwegian Air International (Dublin International), I’m pleased to announce that we will also be opening a second and third pilot base in the U.S., and Norwegian will create at least another 150 new American pilot and cabin crew jobs in 2017."
The Scandinavian LCC already maintains a cabin crew base at New York JFK and pledged, as part of its application to secure NAI US service authority, to use only European and US pilots and crews on NAI's transatlantic flights.
As such, Norwegian will use its incoming fleet of B737 MAX 8s to develop thinner transatlantic routes.
Of its first six MAX jets, due to arrive from Boeing (BOE, Washington National) during the second quarter of next year, Norwegian will likely base at least four in the Greater New York City area and the Greater Boston area next year with Newburgh and Providence strong contenders. The carrier is also considering transatlantic operations from Portsmouth and Hartford Bradley.
In Europe, Norwegian will base B737 MAX and possibly B787 metal out of Edinburgh, Scotland while Riga, Latvia will be home to a B737-800 operation. Both bases are due to officially open late in the second quarter or early in the third quarter of 2017.
In a related development, Norwegian has now announced that all its flights out of its Copenhagen Kastrup base will be operated by NAI going forward. Airline Chief Information Officer (Denmark), Daniel Kirchhoff, told check-in.dk news that the LCC's Stockholm Arlanda hub would follow suit at a later date. Justifying the move, Kirchhoff said NAI's Irish Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) will allow Norwegian to tap into a broader market access given its access to European traffic rights.
