Norwegian to connect Barcelona to four cities in the USA next summer

Barcelona (CNA).- In summer 2017, Barcelona El Prat Airport will offer direct connections to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Miami. This is what low-cost airline Norwegian announced this Wednesday. The new flights will start working in June 2017 and from August onwards Norwegian will offer four weekly flights to New York, three to Los Angeles and San Francisco and two to Miami. In total 325,000 places will be offered in the first year, most of them, 175,000, to California. “Barcelona and Catalonia need this kind of resource in order to deploy their limitless potential”, stated Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, Josep Rull. Indeed, Barcelona will host the only direct route to San Francisco in the whole of Spain. Norwegian’s CEO, Bjorn Kjos, stated that the Spanish market “is key for the company” and assured that the airline is also set to offer other new routes from the Catalan airport soon.

According to Kjos, the four new routes will be launched progressively but will then be operative throughout the year. The second Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner which will be based in El Prat will start working on the 22th of August and from that moment on the four routes will be fully operative. The first connection to be launched will be to Los Angeles, on the 5th of June. The last will be that to Miami, due to start working on the 22th of August.

In total there will be 12 weekly connections with prices starting from 179 euros one-way. With this expansion, Norwegian will enhance its offer from El Prat airport to 26 destinations: 4 within Spain, 18 European destinations and the 4 new intercontinental routes announced this Wednesday.

Regarding the number of passengers, 1.3 million passengers travelled with Norwegian from El Prat airport between July 2015 and the same month in 2016, which represents a 41% increase in comparison to the same period the previous year and makes it the sixth-biggest airline operating from the Catalan facility.

The new routes will be operated by a new set of aircraft, the Boeings 787-8 Dreamliner, with capacity for 291 passengers.

Barcelona closer to becoming an international ‘hub’

“Barcelona and Catalonia need this kind of resource in order to deploy their limitless potential”, stated Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, Josep Rull. He also insisted that Barcelona must be able to compete under equal conditions with other “global cities” nearby, since it is a “powerful destination” due to its economic and touristic power.

In a similar sense, Barcelona’s Deputy Mayor, Jaume Collboni celebrated Norwegian’s decision and defined it as “a step forward” toward turning Barcelona’s airport into an international ‘hub’. Collboni also praised the “added value” of the North American cities which will now be connected to Barcelona.