Once Norwegian Air announced its exit from the long-haul market in early 2021, another Nordic airline quickly stepped in to fill the void left in the transatlantic market.
At the same time that Norwegian's management team decided to cut back to the airline's core European markets and get rid of its whole Dreamliner fleet, its former CEO saw a chance to get back in the game.
The new long-haul airline Norse Atlantic Airways, with its headquarters in Oslo, Norway, began operating in June of this year and has since started rolling out services to a number of U.S. destinations under the direction of charismatic airline entrepreneur Bjorn Kjos, who left his previous executive position at Norwegian in 2019.
The new airline is similar to the old Norwegian Air in many aspects.
In addition to having a very comparable business strategy, Norse also acquired three of the Boeing 787s that had previously flown for Norwegian and gave them a fresh coat of blue paint.
Will Kjos be able to succeed where so many others have failed in the past?
How to employ larger planes without having the same feeder network many traditional airlines rely on is one of the biggest issues new entrants to the long-haul market face.
The bulk of low-cost carriers' predominately point-to-point business models are frequently a barrier.
Most people are unwilling to take the dangers and hassles of using various low-cost aircraft for connections unless rates are much cheaper than other accessible options.
Norse Atlantic, however, differs in this regard.
In order to feed each other's networks, the Oslo-based carrier recently established an arrangement with three distinct low-cost carriers, one in the U.S. and two in Europe.
With this agreement, passengers will now be able to book transatlantic trips on Spirit Airlines, Easyjet, or Norwegian Air all at once via a dedicated website that combine a Norse long-haul ticket with a short-haul flight either in the U.S. or Europe.
Passengers will have a variety of options at each of Norse's transatlantic gateways, including locations like London and New York City, for connecting to their final destination.
Norse only offers connections of at least two-and-a-half hours between flights in an effort to allay any worries about customers missing planes. Passengers will still need to go through customs, retrieve their luggage, and check in once again before their next departure.
Is this assistance useful?
Norse Atlantic's new service has a significant advantage despite the potential problems that passengers may have.
If they miss their connection, passengers won't be left stranded because they may purchase their entire trip directly with the airline (or, alternatively, through the Worldwide by Easyjet website, where it is also available).
In case their new trip necessitates an overnight stay, passengers who miss a connection will be offered lodgings and rebooked on the next flight that becomes available.
Dohop, an Icelandic company that has also created a software platform to link the reservation systems of all the participating airlines in this cooperation, provides the customer support portion of the experience.
Dohop also handles any consumer complaints that come up on behalf of the airlines by getting in touch with them via email, phone, and messenger apps.
How about rewards programs?
Although Norse Atlantic does not currently operate a loyalty program of its own and has no immediate plans to do so, thanks to the carrier's recent alliance, travelers now have the chance to earn Free Spirit points or Norwegian Reward CashPoints if some of their travel involves either airline.
However, be aware that when you make a reservation on Norse's connections website, you cannot enter your loyalty program information.
You must wait until the reservation is confirmed before going to the airline's website and adding membership information to your itinerary.
What may future tourists anticipate?
What will happen to this arrangement now that JetBlue has revealed plans to acquire Spirit is one important topic that has yet to be resolved.
Since the news of JetBlue's acquisition of Norse and Spirit almost immediately followed, it is only natural to worry how it will affect the recently established alliance.
It's simply too early to know, though.
Spirit sources declined to comment on this specific situation other than to say that Spirit and JetBlue "remain to be aggressive competitors" and "shall operate as fully different companies" until the regulatory review process is over.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Norwegian is rebounding from its most recent reduction and regaining momentum, so the situation is different.
Esben Tuman, senior vice president of external communications and public relations at Norwegian, declared that "this deal is a win-win for both our clients and Norwegian."
"Our clients in Europe can now connect to Norse routes running through the USA.
The Norwegian network is now effortlessly accessible to passengers flying from the USA throughout Europe on a single ticket.
If Norwegian stays in the short-haul market and Norse does the same in the long-haul industry, the end result might be something that is quite similar to what the former version of Norwegian used to be, but with two different airlines rather than one.
FACEBOOK