Norwegian cans flights to Ireland

Norwegian Air is scrapping its services to Ireland from North America. The continued grounding of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft is being cited as a primary reason for the decision.

 

By Irish Echo Staff

Norwegian air is ending its transatlantic services linking the North America and Ireland from next month.

Routes from the New York, Boston and Toronto areas to Ireland will be wrapped up from September 15.

The airline, in a statement, said the routes were not proving to be commercially viable though all indications over the past couple of years would seem to indicate that they were popular.

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The airline, reported RTE, has said "several thousand customers" will be impacted by the route closures.

Norwegian Air began operating routes between Dublin, Cork, Shannon and the U.S., amid much fanfare, in July 2017. It has carried 650,000 passengers on the routes since that launch.

RTE reported that Norwegian is among dozens of airlines globally who have been impacted by the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX fleet, following two fatal crashes involving the aircraft.

Norwegian was operating the Max on all its transatlantic routes when the plane was grounded.

Matthew Wood, Senior vice President Long-Haul Commercial at Norwegian said: "Since March, we have tirelessly sought to minimize the impact on our customers by hiring replacement aircraft to operate services between Ireland and North America. However, as the return to service date for the 737 MAX remains uncertain, this solution is unsustainable."

Wood said the airline was assisting customers by ensuring they can still get to their destination by rerouting them onto other Norwegian services after September 15. 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," he said.

Up to 134 jobs are at risk as a result of the scrapping of the routes which saw planes flying from Stewart Airport north of New York City and T.F. Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island to Dublin, Shannon and Cork.

Norwegian Air is engaging with its 48 pilots and 86 cabin crew at its Dublin base, including their respective unions, to ensure that redundancies remain a last resort, the RTE report stated.

 

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