Norwegian reopens El Prat airport base connecting Barcelona to 8 Nordic cities

Norwegian reopened its base at the Barcelona El Prat airport on Monday, three years after closing due to the pandemic, in a move that has created 65 jobs. 

The airline will have two Boeing 737s connecting the Catalan capital to eight Nordic cities: Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger in Norway, Copenhagen and Aalborg in Denmark, Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden, and Helsinki in Finland.

The base is set to be in operation from May 1 to October 31 and every subsequent summer tourism season.

Before the pandemic, the airline's southern European long-haul base was in Barcelona, and it had six planes that flew from the Catalan capital to US destinations. The company, however, suffered severe financial difficulties and reached an agreement with unions to furlough almost a thousand workers across Spain. 

Last summer Norwegian announced that it would reopen its Barcelona base, which is also the site of one of its administrative headquarters that employs some 130 people. 

All in all, the airline will fly 49 routes this summer from nine airports in Spain: Barcelona, Alicante, Bilbao, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Madrid, Malaga, Palma, and Tenerife.

Of these, only Barcelona, Alicante, and Malaga are bases, that is to say, places where crew and planes spend the night.