Norwegian Expands Spanish Summer 2015 Schedule

Norwegian is expanding its operations from Spain in summer 2015, with the launch of new routes from its base in Barcelona, Madrid and Malaga.

Five destinations will be served from the Barcelona base including Billund, Dubrovnik, Stavanger, Birmingham and Trondheim, all of which will operate twice weekly.

Both the Billund and Birmingham routes will commence from June 1, 2015, with the Birmingham route serving as a year-round operation. Both the Trondheim and Dubrovnik routes will commence on June 3, 2015, and the Barcelona – Stavanger route will commence on June 4, 2015.

Additional operations from Madrid will include routes to Catania, once weekly, Dubrovnik twice weekly, and Birmingham three times weekly. The Birmingham route will serve as a year-round destination, commencing on March 31, 2015 – when the Madrid – Dubrovnik route will also commence operation. The Catania service will commence on April 4, 2015.

The airline will commence two year-round routes from Malaga, including Birmingham and Edinburgh which will commence on March 29 and March 31, 2015 respectively.

“Norwegian has become one of the world’s largest low cost carriers. Now, more than 40 percent of our traffic is outside of Scandinavia, which illustrates a significant international expansion over the past year. We look forward to both our crew and passengers flying on the new routes,” says Thomas Ramdahl, Chief Commercial Officer in Norwegian.

The airline will also launch a summer route from Helsinki Pula, operating once weekly from June 27, 2015.

“Our passengers appreciate our product with new aircraft and free WiFi. We have many popular routes from Scandinavia and now we are giving our passengers more opportunities to fly with us to some of our fantastic destinations”

Thomas Ramdahl
Chief Commercial Officer for Norwegian

Norwegian has plans to increase departures on existing routes in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

From Oslo, the airline plans to increase its Barcelona route from 11 to 13 times weekly and its Malaga offering from 10 to 12 weekly, increasing to 16 in school holidays.

Its Bergen – Alicante route will increase from two to three weekly departures, and its Stockholm – Alicante offering will increase from six to seven weekly flights. Also from Stockholm, the airline’s Malaga route will expand from eight to nine weekly departures, increasing to ten during school holidays.

The airline’s Gothenburg – Barcelona route will increase from three to four weekly departures, and its Copenhagen base will see increases on five of its services including Malaga – from 12 to 13 weekly, Palma from seven to nine weekly (11 in school holidays), Krakow from three to five weekly, Edinburgh from five to six weekly, and Budapest six to eight weekly departures.

Helsinki will see an increase on its Venice service to offer two instead of one during the school holidays, and the airline’s Helsinki – Burgas route will increase from one to two weekly departures.

Norwegian initially served the Spain with links from its home Scandinavian market but has significantly expanded over recent years as it has opened up new bases across Europe and in the Spanish market. In fact its flights in and out of Spain accounted for 16.7 per cent of its total network capacity in 2014, up from 12.8 per cent the previous year.

In the chart, below, we highlight the increasing role the Spanish market has played in the Norwegian network over the past ten years. The airline now operates over 28,000 flights in and out of Spain every year offering an annual capacity of more than 5.3 million seats.

Data provided by OAG

Poppy Marello

Poppy joined the Routesonline team after successfully completing a degree in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University. Poppy has a passion for…