Norwegian Air cuts routes to US from Ireland as Boeing 737 Max grounding bites
Budget airline Norwegian Air will stop flights between Ireland and the US in September, after its finances were hit by the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max.
It said: “We have concluded these routes are no longer commercially viable.”
Norwegian has struggled to make a profit in recent months, and said in July the grounding of the Boeing jet could scupper its hopes of returning to profitability.
The airline said all six routes it operates from Dublin, Cord and Shannon to airports in the US and Canada would stop running on 15 September.
Boeing grounded its fleet of 737 Max jets across the globe earlier this year, after two fatal crashes killed a total of 346 people.
Senior vice president of Norwegian’s long-haul division Matthew Wood said:”Since March, we have tirelessly sought to minimise the impact on our customers by hiring replacement aircraft to operate services between Ireland and North America. However, as the return to service date for the 737 MAx remains uncertain, this solution is unsustainable.”
Any customers who already have flights booked will be rerouted onto other Norwegian services, the airline said.
“We will continue to offer scheduled services from Dublin to Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen as normal,” said Wood.
The airline said if it made any redundancies as a result of the decision they would be “a last resort”.
“Our 80 Dublin-based administrative staff at Norwegian Air International and Norwegian Group’s asset company, Arctic Aviation Assets, will not be affected by the route closures,” Wood added.
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