Norse Atlantic may bring its flying longboats to Las Vegas this summer. The carrier received slot allocations at London’s Gatwick Airport to add the route, as well as increase its operations to Boston and New York’s JFK airport. While the allocation is no guarantee the service launches, it does represent the first time Las Vegas has been floated as a potential market for the carrier.
Hopefully the carrier will learn from the mistakes of Norwegian, should the service launch, and adjust flight times to account for the hot climate of Las Vegas in the summer. That iteration of long-haul LCC operated Gatwick-Las Vegas in 2016, but was forced to cut the summer service in 2017 after the heat forced many delays the prior year.
Service to China also shows signs of significant growth at Gatwick for the upcoming summer season. Air China now holds slots for nearly double daily service across Shanghai and Beijing. China Southern also secured additional slots, with Zhengzhou (CGO) and Guangzhou (CAN) expected to add service. Some of that growth comes at the expense of the Wuhan (WUH) route dropping one weekly frequency. China Eastern also appears to have dropped some of its Shanghai capacity into Gatwick.
In Southeast Asia Vietnam Airlines saw an increase of slots allocated for service to Hanoi and Saigon, from one to five weekly departures. Bamboo Airways also received its requested slots, but the carrier recently scrapped its 787 fleet so those are likely to go unused or be reallocated to an alternate airline. Singapore Airlines received allocations for 5x weekly service at Gatwick, adding diversity to its London operations.
Air India increases its allocation from 11 to 17 weekly departures. This will include increased frequencies to secondary cities in India, including Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Cochin, and Goa.
Other significant slot allocations for Summer 2024 include:
- ITA Airways double daily to Rome
- Ethiopian Airlines 3x weekly to Addis
- Air Mauritius daily
- Atlantic Airways to the Faroe Islands
- Play daily to Keflavik
- TAAG Angola to Luanda 3x weekly
- Sri Lankan 2x weekly to Colombo
- SpiceJet daily to India, though this seems unlikely to operate as the carrier does not have the aircraft to support it
Some route reductions, too
Moving in the other direction, however, AirAsia X officially forfeited its slots, dropping service to London as previously announced. WestJet also significantly reduced planned operations at Gatwick, now down to less than daily service for the season.
A favor to ask while you're here...
Did you enjoy the content? Or learn something useful? Or generally just think this is the type of story you'd like to see more of? Consider supporting the site through a donation (any amount helps). It helps keep me independent and avoiding the credit card schlock.
Leave a Reply