Airlines Norwegian becomes largest non-US airline serving New York

The three airports in New York, New York JFK International, Newark and LaGuardia handled over 130 million passengers in 2017. Although a majority of these passengers travel with US airlines, almost every major international airline connects its hub with New York.

The European low cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle has now announced it has become the largest non-US airline on transatlantic routes to and from New York.

The airline carried 1.67 million international passengers to and from three of New York City’s airports according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s most recent traffic report, surpassing British Airways, which carried 1.63 million.

According to the press release, Norwegian’s passenger numbers to and from New York City have continued to increase since the beginning of 2018, as the airline has also overtaken Lufthansa and Emirates in July. Norwegian operates several routes from three airports in the New York City area: JFK International Airport is connected with Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London-Gatwick, Madrid, Oslo-Gardermoen, Paris CDG, Stockholm-Arlanda and Fort-de-France and Pointe-á Pitre. From Newark, passengers can travel to Barcelona, Paris-Orly and Rome-Fiumcino. Bergen, Dublin, Edinburgh, Shannon and Belfast are the destinations from Stewart International Airport. Stewart International Airport is an airport in Orange Country in New York approximately 97 kilometers north of Manhattan.

 Norwegian launched its first route to New York on May 30, 2013 from Oslo and Stockholm on May 31, 2013. All flights to Newark and JFK are operated with Boeing 787 Dreamliner. For the flights to Stewart Airport, Norwegian uses Boeing 737.

Bjørn Kjos, Norwegian CEO and Founder, said: ““Passenger numbers by the NY/NJ Port Authority further endorses the strong demand for lower fares on lucrative transatlantic routes as we flew more customers to and from New York than any other international airline in the 12 months to July 2018.

Norwegian’s major competitor British Airways has focused on flights between London and New York: The airline offers flights between Newark and its major hub London-Heathrow as well as flights to JFK from Heathrow, London-City and Gatwick.