Norse Atlantic will shift its South Florida operations a bit further south. The carrier is abandoning Fort Lauderdale for Miami, effective 18 September 2023.
CEO Bjorn Tore Larsen is direct about the reasoning for the move, citing “high levels of passenger demand with both direct and connecting traffic volumes greater than other airports in the region.”
The move is not especially surprising, particularly when considering the company continues to replay much of the playbook from Norwegian‘s long-haul operations (which Norse continues to insist it is not a replica of, all evidence to the contrary). Norwegian also launched at Fort Lauderdale before moving operations to Miami in early 2019. Indeed, given that history, it is somewhat surprising that the carrier started in Fort Lauderdale at all rather than immediately going for the larger market.
With Norse’s departure Fort Lauderdale is, once again, nearly without transatlantic service. A handful of EL AL flights to Tel Aviv remain around the holidays in September/October, but nothing more. Azul‘s service to Brazil will be the only long-haul routes at the airport.
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LY plans on operating year-round FLL-TLV service starting next Spring: https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/airlines/el-al/taking-advantage-americans-surrender-el-al-will-launch-fort-lauderdale-flights-expand-miami-service-israel/
Fair. I had only checked through EOY.
Still not great for FLL to lose this, especially with that quote from the Norse CEO.