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Norwegian Air is to halve the number of flight from Dublin to New York for the winter with two daily flights resuming at the end of March.
Daily flights from Shannon to New York Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York, will cease on January 12th. The service will resume at the rate of five times per week on March 31st, the airline intends to maintain the route as a summer-only service from 2019 onwards.
Up to 100,000 passengers have flown with the airline to and from Shannon Airport since July, 2017 when they commenced services with four weekly direct flights to New York Stewart International Airport and Providence International Airport.
However their decision to scale back comes as it reduces flights from Europe to Stewart International Airport to 11, the least it has offered since first landing at the airport 17 months ago. This coming January will see Norwegian terminate its London Gatwick to Singapore route after 15 months of operation.
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Head of Communications with Norwegian, Anders Lindström said the decision was cost based. “In order to ensure a more successful and profitable operation, Norwegian will shorten parts of its winter schedule from Newburgh, during periods when demand is much lower. As a cost disciplined company, we continuously monitor and evaluate our route network and these changes have been made as part of our commitment to reducing costs”.
“We are seasonally adjusting routes across our entire network to be even more competitive, including a number of other US routes as well, so not just to Ireland. And it’s only effective during the most quiet travel period,” Mr Lindström added.
He explained that the decision not to return Shannon to its original volume of flights in the busier season is due to a greater demand in Dublin. “Our route capacity is always based on demand in the market”.
Customers that have already booked flights have been informed of the changes and offered a full refund or a rebooking option.