Norwegian Air Chief Executive Bjørn Kjos has announced the budget airline would begin new routes to major Asian cities including Hong Kong and New Delhi from 2016. Kjos also launched three new US routes from London.
Kjos announced the new routes at Sweden’s annual Almedalen Week, a major multi-party political gathering in Gotland. “It’s coming in two years,” he told local media, reported news bureau NTB. “We’re going to fly to the major cities in Asia, for example New Delhi and Hong Kong. And it will not just be from Stockholm, but from several European cities.”
He said Norwegian Air would need to establish new bases in Asia, to be able to compete with local airlines.
Kjos later flew to London to launch Norwegian Air’s three new routes to the USA. The airline now be flying to New York, Los Angeles and Florida from Gatwick airport. Kjos was confident the huge delays that plagued Norwegian when it established its first Europe to US routes last year with the problematic Boeing Dreamliners were a thing of the past, even though Norwegian passengers from Orlando arrived a record 44 hours late into Oslo just last week, again because of Dreamliner trouble compounded by other breakdowns and bad weather.
“It’s looking very good,” claimed the ever-optimistic Kjos, who still lacks formal long-term permission from US authorities to fly routes such as those to New York, Florida and California. “I think the future is very bright, provided that you have planes with low fuel consumption. People are just flying more and more, but being efficient applies.”
newsinenglish.no staff
