With the imminent return of freer two-way travel between Europe and North America, the question arises: Is there a future for discount carriers on some of the world’s busiest air routes? Some new entrants think so.
The pandemic year was hard on airlines in general, and sounded the final blow for some of those that were already struggling, including the once-aggressive low-cost leader, Norwegian Air, which has now returned to its roots as a regional airline.
But some of its former leaders, with new investors, are betting on a second chance at making money on a web of low-cost flights linking the two continents. Trading as Norse Atlantic Airways, they plan to follow the same playbook as Norwegian: cheap flights, extra charges for everything from food to bags to blankets. They even plan to use the same planes, mainly 787s.
The big differences: Norse will be leasing them for about half what Norwegian was paying, reflecting current conditions, and they are unlikely to plunge into the headlong expansion that ultimately brought Norwegian down.
Another new carrier waiting for a U.S. air carrier certificate is PLAY, based in Iceland, and plans to follow the traditional pattern of Iceland-based airlines: Every flight begins or ends at the country’s Keflavik airport, and offers cheap connections to cities in Europe and North America. PLAY’s CEO says it’s a no-frills basic service with ‘basically nothing included in the ticket’ except the ride. He believes the airline can operate cheaply by using smaller planes at a lower cost rather than larger ones.
But a real question for many is: with traffic just starting to pick up, prices are relatively low now even on mainline carriers. At the same time, JetBlue, a mid-price but full-service carrier has entered the U.S.-to-London market, selling both economy and first-class, and Aer Lingus, another full-service carrier that operates as a lower-price unit of the group that also owns British Air is starting flights from Manchester to New York and Orlando, also at discounted rates.
It may just be that a successful low-cost carrier will have to wait a while before there’s a real market for it.
