Surprise! The aggressively-marketed low-cost Norwegian upstart has become the #1 foreign airline flying in and out of New York’s airports, edging out Air Canada.
For the 12 months ending with February 2019, Norwegian flew 2,078,847 passengers through the Port Authority’s four airports, Norwegian flies to three of them—JFK, Newark/Liberty and Newburgh/Stewart. Its total was just 11,800 more passengers than Air Canada flew in and out of LaGuardia and Newark.
But life is not all beautiful for Norwegian; in its aggressive expansion phase it racked up significant losses and had to begin cost-cutting moves last year that will at least for the moment limit growth in favor of profits. And, also for now, it has lost use of its 737 MAX planes that had been flying routes between Europe and Stewart; the cost of replacement aircraft is a worry, although Norwegian says it expects to be reimbursed by Boeing.
