Low-cost airline Norwegian is to end all transatlantic flights from Ireland from the 15th Septemeber 2019 after undertaking a review of its services.
Currently Norwegian flies six routes to the USA and Canada from Dublin, Cork and Shannon which were set up to be operated by the airlines Boeing 737 Max.
But with the 737 Max grounded following two fatal accidents the airline was forced to wet-lease aircraft to cover the routes.
With no end in sight for the grounded 737 Max fleet, the airline has taken the decision that it cannot continue to run the routes in the current situation.
Norwegian’s Senior Vice-President Long-Haul Commercial, Matthew Wood, said: “Since March, we have tirelessly sought to minimise the impact on our customers by hiring (wet-leasing) 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.”
Norwegian launched flights between Ireland and North America in 2017 utilising the smaller east coast airports such as New York Stewart International, Providence, Rhode Island and Hamilton, Toronto.
Mr Wood did not rules out redundancies amongst flight crew based at Dublin airport but said: “Our 80 Dublin-based administrative staff at Norwegian Air International and Norwegian Group’s asset company, Arctic Aviation Assets, will not be affected by the route closures.”
Mr Wood added: “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“
