Norwegian to End Transatlantic Flights from Ireland

Norwegian has confirmed that it will end transatlantic flights between Ireland and North America from 15 September 2019.

The airline says that the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft played a major role in the decision.

Norwegian launched transatlantic flights from Dublin, Cork and Shannon to the east coast of the USA in 2017.

Matthew Wood, SVP Long-Haul Commercial at Norwegian, said, “We take a strict approach to route management and constantly evaluate route performance to ensure we meet customer demand. Compounded by the global grounding of the 737 MAX and the continued uncertainty of its return to service, this has led us to make the difficult decision to discontinue all six routes from Dublin, Cork and Shannon to the US and Canada from 15 September 2019.”

Norwegian wetleased replacement aircraft but as the return to service date for the 737 MAX remains uncertain, it has decided that this solution is unsustainable.

“We are assisting customers by ensuring they can still get to their destination by rerouting them onto other Norwegian services. Customers will also be offered a full refund if they no longer wish to travel. We will continue to offer scheduled services from Dublin to Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen as normal,” Mr. Wood added. “We are proactively engaging with our pilots and cabin crew at our Dublin base, including their respective unions, to ensure that redundancies remain a last resort.

The 80 Dublin-based administrative staff at Norwegian Air International and Norwegian Group’s asset company, Arctic Aviation Assets, are not expected to be affected by the route closures.

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