Norwegian’s Aircraft Leases and How To Get An Amazing Deal Out Of Them
For those of you who don’t know, Norwegian Air Shuttle over the past months has been leasing multiple types of aircraft on some of its transatlantic routes that generally are operated by their 787s. This is because some of Norwegian’s 787s are under maintenance because the engines that their 787s are flown with, the Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines are under repair. I also do believe that another reason why they operate using leased aircraft is that they fly more routes than their fleet of 787s can handle. Anyway, Norwegian’s only long-haul plane is the 787, and Norwegian is leasing aircraft from a variety of short-term aircraft leasing companies to make up for their loss.
A lot of people may think that these aircraft leasings are a terrible thing, as you are being “downgraded” from a new 787 to an older aircraft, but in this article, I’m going to make the case that it might be a good thing. Since the leased aircraft are only going to be operated for Norwegian for a couple more months, this article is useful mostly if you still need to book last minute travel to Europe, and would prefer a comfortable seat for a low price.
Background:
Norwegian Air Shuttle operates a lot of long-haul routes, primarily served by the 787, but some of which are performed by 737s. Their long-haul routes primarily consist of flying between major European cities such as London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, or Amsterdam to both primary and secondary airports of major cities in the US, such as Fort Lauderdale, Oakland, New York JFK, Newburgh (New York Stewart). Their 737s feature an all-economy class configuration, and their 787s feature a two-class configuration with economy class and premium economy. Premium economy on the 787s features recliner seats in a 2-3-2 configuration with legrests, and all seats on their 787s feature personal on-demand entertainment.
Regarding service, on transatlantic routes, passengers in economy class have to pay for meals while in premium economy, one receives a free meal. Norwegian offers premium economy tickets for relatively cheap prices, at around $500-$800 one way for a transatlantic flight, which definitely is comparable to if not less expensive than economy class on legacy airlines one way transatlantically.
Norwegian Premium Economy Cabin on the 787 (Photo Courtesy of Norwegian Air Shuttle)
Since Norwegian operates more routes than their current fleet can sustain (partially because of 787 engine problems), they have been forced to lease planes from multiple airlines to fill in the gap. For a while, they leased an A380 operated by HiFly and a 747 from Wamos Air to serve on their New York to London route. The A380 formerly flew for Singapore Airlines, and therefore had a Singapore Airlines cabin. For the price of premium economy, one could have booked a seat on Singapore Airlines first or business class on that route, just with Norwegian Air Shuttle’s premium economy service. Norwegian still leases (as of this moment) four widebody aircraft which they use on five transatlantic routes to replace their 787s, which I will discuss later in this article.
All of the planes that Norwegian leases feature a two-class configuration, with economy class and business class. Passengers booked in premium economy on Norwegian aircraft get transferred over to business class on their leased planes. This brings me to my main point of this article: for reasonably priced premium economy tickets on transatlantic flights, one is placed in business class seats operated on a leased aircraft, which represents a massive upgrade over simple recliner seats. For the rest of this article, I will discuss which routes (currently) are operated by leased planes and what one can expect on board.
Also, Norwegian’s schedule features all of these aircraft operating on the routes mentioned for the next few months, although eventually, they will move back to using 787s on these routes. Finally, if anyone is wondering how I know which planes fly on what routes and what interiors they have, I use flightradar24 to figure out the callsign of planes that fly different routes for Norwegian. Then if I see that Norwegian doesn’t own that type of aircraft, I can look at the websites of short-term aircraft leasing companies to see what the interiors of the planes are.
Norwegian operates leased planes on some of their transatlantic routes, such as this Hi Fly A330
Wamos Air A330s From London to Fort Lauderdale/Chicago/Denver
Norwegian’s schedule out of London to US Airports
The Routes/Onboard Experience:
On Norwegian’s daily flight from London Gatwick to Fort Lauderdale and their 3x weekly flight to Denver and 4x weekly flight to Chicago O’Hare, Norwegian operates A330-200s operated by Wamos Air, a charter and scheduled airline based in Spain. These aircraft have personal entertainment screens at every seat, and economy class is in a 2-4-2 configuration. However, business class features angle flat seats in a 2-2-2 configuration. While angle flat seats aren’t nearly as good as flatbed seats, they are significantly better than what Norwegian has on their 787s regarding premium economy class. This means that if you book premium economy on these routes, you get a massive upgrade regarding seating.
Overall, on this plane, since economy class still has IFE and has about the same amount of legroom, economy class stays about the same regarding comfort while the premium economy is much better. The planes on these routes are supposed to be operated by Norwegian’s 787s in mid-January again, so know that while the leases might be extended, around then the planes on these routes will likely be back to normal.
Pricing:
On the routes flown by Wamos Air, the pricing entirely depends on the date that you are operating and the route, as logically, routes with higher demand on peak days are priced higher than flights on non-peak days on a route with less need. Overall, premium economy from Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, and Denver costs around $600-$800 on for dates that are operated by the Wamos Air Aircraft, which for almost entirely flat seats on 7-10 hour flights is a great deal.
Euro-Atlantic 777
The Routes/Onboard Experience:
Norwegian operates a Boeing 777-200 operated by EuroAtlantic Airways (a Portuguese airline leasing company) from Newark to Paris-Orly Airport. The plane features economy class in a 3-3-3 configuration which is the same configuration as on the 787s, so passengers won’t be losing any comfort if their flight is operated by this plane. However, business class is in a 2-3-2 configuration and features angle flat seats, which based on the picture on Euro-Atlantic’s website, look almost exactly like Air France’s old A330/A380 business class.
Also, all seats onboard have personal IFE, just like on Norwegian’s 787s. It does seem that Norwegian is discontinuing their route from Newark to Paris-Orly based on that their website doesn’t show any flights after the start of January; any more flights until then will be operated on this plane. Until the flight is discontinued, it runs 6x weekly service.
Pricing:
Depending on dates, flights from New York to Paris Orly range from $550 to $900 one way as the lowest fare, depending on the dates. Especially since New York to Paris is such a competitive and high-yield route, having a business class seat for that price, one that is cheaper than economy class on most legacy airlines, is a fantastic deal.
Privilege Style 777
The Routes/Onboard Experience:
I have to admit that until I started looking into Norwegian’s leased aircraft, I hadn’t known that Privilege Style even existed. For those of you who don’t know, Privilege Style is a tiny short-term airline leasing company that has a 767, 777, and multiple other smaller aircraft. Up until (as scheduled now) early January 2019, Norwegian is operating a 777 from Privilege Style from Newark to Rome-Fiumicino. The plane features thirty business class seats in a 2-3-2 angle flat configuration and 284 economy class seats in a 3-3-3 configuration, remarkably similar to that of on Euroatlantic.
However, after looking through TripAdvisor, it does seem that while the seats have entertainment screens, there is no actual entertainment loaded onto the screens. So yes, if you are in economy and the flight is operated by Privilege Style, I would recommend avoiding it. However, if you are travelling in premium economy, I do consider a substantial seat upgrade more important than entertainment.
Pricing:
Again, since the dates that the aircraft operate on are mostly peak dates, the prices are higher than normal for premium economy, although for a business class seat, disregarding the fact that it is angle, $700-$900 is a pretty good deal for one-way flights in business class.
Conclusion:
While Norwegian’s schedule only states that they will be leasing planes for another one and a half months from short-term leasing companies, I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if they were to be extended. For almost flat business class seats, flights until early January on Norwegian from London to Chicago, Denver, and Fort Lauderdale, and from Newark to Paris-Orly and Rome feature pretty good prices. If you are planning on travelling on some of these dates between any of these cities, I recommend booking now, as prices are only bound to go up. Overall, while economy class doesn’t benefit at all or even may be at a loss (due to lack of entertainment on select aircraft), business class seats do come at a pretty low cost, compared to even what economy class prices on competing airlines are.
Have you or will you fly on any of Norwegian’s leased long-haul aircraft?
