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Norwegian to launch London Heathrow flights from March 2020, it seems

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Well, here’s an interesting one.  Norwegian has been awarded six weekly slots at Heathrow Airport for the Summer 2020 season.

Starting from late March and running to late October, Norwegian will be in a position to launch three flights per week, given that a take-off and landing requires two slots.

At the moment there are no clues as to what route Norwegian will launch, although as it is a Summer slot it may be targeting Florida.  There is no guarantee that Norwegian will gain Winter 2020 slots, and without the potential for operating year-round it would be trickier to target business routes.

Norwegian gains slots at Heathrow

This came to light in the Summer 2020 Heathrow slot report, published by Airport Coordination, the company which handles slot trades on behalf of airlines.

This is a very interesting document if you have 10 minutes spare and have avgeek tendencies.   It seems that there were 9,658 allocated weekly slots last Summer.

Ten were surrendered – eight by Tunisair and two by Turkmenistan Airlines.  This left 9,648 slots already allocated.  The airport seems to have squeezed out an extra three flights (not daily, three in total over the week), because the total allocation for Summer 2020 is 9,664 slots.

This means 16 additional weekly slots (ie 8 flights).  Six went to Norwegian, two to Virgin Atlantic, two to Tunisair (partly offsetting the eight they gave up), two to Shenzhen Airlines and four to China Southern.

JetBlue asked for 70 slots – enough for five daily flights to the US – and got nothing.  Virgin Atlantic asked for an extra 114 slots which must have caused a few giggles at Heathrow, given that it ended up with a grand total of two, allowing it to add just a single additional departure per week.

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Comments (149)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • @mkcol says:
    2 Dec2 December 09:23

    Galley FM at Norwegian says the LHR slots are for MCO.

    • Doug M says:
      2 Dec2 December 12:35

      Any thoughts on why this would work for them? A holiday destination, no meaningful connecting traffic. A history of BA running spoilers on any route they feel challenged on. If they run those routes out of Gatwick they have possibility of connecting traffic from Scandinavia, an established base and reduced threat of BA. This seems odd to me.
      Virgin, having a laugh, as usual all bluster and no outcome.

      • Rob says:
        2 Dec2 December 12:55

        It will work better than New York though, because they will struggle to attract business travellers with three flights per week – and possibly at bad times too, since it is unlikely heavily attractive times would be available via this slot process.

      • Spaghetti Town says:
        2 Dec2 December 13:48

        Isn’t MCO the busiest airport in the world without LHR service?

        Now i might be lying in saying that, but it’s certainly up there.

        • Doug M says:
          2 Dec2 December 17:52

          It’ll certainly feel that way if you ever find yourself queuing at security without TSA PRE.

        • Charlieface says:
          3 Dec3 December 00:45

          No a quick look on Wikipedia says Jakarta is at the moment, owing to Garuda’s merry-go-round schedule changes. Otherwise you’re right.

  • Anon says:
    2 Dec2 December 09:23

    OT: Is the proposed HSBC Mastercard transfer bonus live?

  • youngtraveller says:
    2 Dec2 December 09:59

    any idea who will take up air New Zealand slots?

    • Rob says:
      2 Dec2 December 10:07

      No news yet but should get a premium price given the timings work for US West Coast. Star Alliance tends to encourage trades between members.

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    2 Dec2 December 10:18

    If slots are so valuable, why were these just put back in the pool – and then some re-applied for in Tunisair’s case?

    • Rob says:
      2 Dec2 December 11:46

      Partly timings, perhaps. Perhaps political reasons too for not selling? I admit I was surprised too. Were they using the slots?

      Perhaps they were late night ones they were hoping to trade for better ones but couldn’t find any? Remember you can’t sell a slot but you can trade a bad one with a cash incentive.

  • BJ says:
    2 Dec2 December 10:19

    OT: Some clarity on Hilton x2 or x3 bonuses on power up (unless it is actually random). I have Hilton credit card on my profile. Booked two separate stays for Friday and Saturday nights. Paid both with amex due to the offer. At check in Friday I handed over my Hilton card to authorise for bar etc. Receptionist tapped some details into keyboard. This stay got x3 points. Saturday I repeated process, receptionist declined Hilton card saying she would use card on file. I did not push the issue. This time I only got x2 bonus. Thus it would appear as reported that there is no need to pay with Hilton or other visa card. However, if my experience is the norm then a Hilton (or possibly other visa) needs to be associated with the specific reservation to trigger x3 points, having visa in the profile alone seems to be insufficient. If others have a different experience then it seems it is just the luck of the draw.

    • BJ says:
      2 Dec2 December 10:45

      Well, almost certainly not random but more difficult to figure.

    • Russ says:
      2 Dec2 December 15:16

      Why did she decline your card? The receptionist is supposed to ask you which card you want to use not tell you which card they’ve decided to use?

      • BJ says:
        2 Dec2 December 15:50

        Poor choice of word on my part as she was just being helpful. She didn’t refuse, she just assumed I was offering her the same card as I used to pay and explained she could use it off the file so didn’t need my card again.

        • Russ says:
          2 Dec2 December 19:14

          Lol – I’ve done that myself. Better luck next time.

          • BJ says:
            2 Dec2 December 20:20

            I was so confident I was getting triple points anyway so I never pushed the issue, we live and learn, cost me over 500 points.

  • AndyK says:
    2 Dec2 December 10:46

    OT. Looking for recent data points.
    How long will it take to transfer MR to Avios for the first time?

    • BJ says:
      2 Dec2 December 12:02

      However long it is found in the past it was quicker to call CS to activate a new partner and have them do the transfer at the same time.

  • Dawn says:
    2 Dec2 December 11:23

    Has anyone flown Business class with Sri Lankan airlines and what’s it like? I have to visit Sri Lanka sometimes and now that they may be going to Sydney this is an interesting route for me.
    I’ve only flown economy with the once and I stupidly forgot to take my credit card that I used for the booking with me. They made my husband drive all the way back to our house to collect the card and bring it back to Heathrow for me before they would allow me to board the plane. Thankfully we only lived 40 minutes from Heathrow and had left plenty of time. It put me off them and I haven’t flown with them since.

    • Matt says:
      2 Dec2 December 11:50

      I did a few short hops including some on the A330. It was excellent. Nice spicy food, friendly service, and the seats on the A330 are excellent.

    • BJ says:
      2 Dec2 December 12:00

      Their business class is solid, will be even better now with these seats in 1-2-1 configuration. Service is very pleasant and attentive. If you like South Asian food then their main meal can be excellent. I found their second meal options less satisfactory as they went for silly stuff like pizza or mini burgers. That may have been scrapped though as it is over 4 years since I flew with them. I used to call to book over the phone as they offered much more flexible fares for a little more. When doing so there was always a drama about the card, they wanted it copied and faxed over which I was never happy about but having said that I never had any problem as a result. Will definitely fly them again if the £ recovers making their one way fares back to the UK from Asia hood deals.

  • Andrew says:
    2 Dec2 December 11:33

    Bits.

    New CyberMonday Travel Promos if your employer offers Corporate Perks:-

    IHG – 15%
    Walt Disney Travel – 10%

    Non Travel:-

    Philips – 20%
    Lenovo – 15%
    HP – 15%
    Bose – 15%
    Debenhams – 5% (Will stack with Amex offer)
    Harrods – 7% (Will stack with Amex offer)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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