A brand new Norwegian low-cost transatlantic airline is expected to launch Viking flights from Dublin to the US in the coming months.
Orse Atlantic Airways, which calls its new fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft from Irish lessor Aercap “Longships”, has been given 38 weekly slots at Dublin Airport for the upcoming winter season.
The slots would allow the new airline, which offers round-trip flights to the States of Europe for just US$115 (€109) each way, to fly 19 flights to and from Dublin.
The airline currently flies from Oslo, London Gatwick and Berlin and serves New York’s JFK Airport, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles.
“We are very pleased about secured slots at Dublin Airport,” said a spokesman for the airline on request Sunday independent. “During our launch phase, the flexibility of our network is paramount to ensure we take advantage of commercially viable opportunities and routes. We will announce further details in due course.”
Norse is owned by Norwegian shipowner and qualified pilot Bjorn Tore Larsen.
He started out as a travel agency but founded Norwegian shipping
Giant OSM in 1989.
Larsen has chosen to launch the new airline, which had its maiden flight from Oslo to New York last week, at a difficult time in the industry with many other airlines caught between recovering from the long ground closure during the pandemic and now a busy rush that puts pressure on human resources.
Larsen has insisted he is very confident Norse Atlantic’s model will differ from that of Norwegian, the Irish-registered transatlantic airline which had been trying to shake up the long-haul market before going bankrupt.
Since then the company has restarted with a much downsized route network focused on the Nordic regions while trying to refocus and rebuild its business.
“I don’t think we can be compared,” Larsen said when asked on CNN why Norse would succeed where Norwegian failed.
“We are a completely different airline, we are brand new with a new concept. We only fly long-haul. We don’t have the complexity of a hub and spoke carrier. We are very focused on keeping costs down.
“We have very modern, but still very inexpensive aircraft. More importantly, we have an abundance of people wanting to join us, and many of them have already joined,” he said.
