Low cost carrier Norwegian Airlines has been making an assault on other carriers lately with their flights from Oslo to California. Now, they are beginning a new route that is sure to change some pricing down the road and will certainly give people an inexpensive option to travel to London without using miles.
Fly From New York To London For As Low As $248
Starting this week, flights from London Gatwick to Los Angeles, NY, and Fort Lauderdale will began! The LAX and FLL routes can be had for as low as $298.
One-way cost from NY to London
While these flights do list at as low as $248 (for NY) and $298 (for LAX and FLL), that price is reserved for the winter time. To buy a ticket for next week on JFK – London, it would cost you $398. For a one-way ticket to London this close to departure, that is an incredible price!
There are few things to take note of about Norwegian Airlines. They do charge for most everything on-board – food, seat reservation, baggage, and the use of your credit card for purchase of the ticket. If you can handle all of that and flying in coach (which I have no problem with!), that is a great deal!
The return ticket costs a little bit more. For a return in January, it is $269 with other dates this summer costing quite a bit more.
The total cost of a ticket from NY to London
No matter what, these new routes are a great way to open up London for many Americans. It is a really great deal to be able to fly to London for only $250 – it sometimes costs that much to go to Atlanta from the Northeast!
Here is a breakdown of some of the fees you may need/want to pay (based on one-way):
- Add Plus (breakfast + dinner, seat reservation, 1 piece of baggage) – $59
- Extra baggage – $42 for the first bag, $50 for the second bag
- Credit card charge (per reservation) – $7
- Advanced Seat Reservation – $42
It is important to note that these fees are based on the city pair. The numbers above are specifically for the JFK/London route.
Something to remember is that those prices are the cheapest prices on tickets. There are times when the cost is higher than that, but I saw many dates with around $330 for one-way tickets to London. That is still a pretty good deal!
Norwegian Air is really making an interesting run here. I wrote about them a short time back and their interesting similarity to Laker Airways of old – http://threadtripping.boardingarea.com/2014/06/save-a-halen-tail-for-sir-freddie/. It will be interesting to see if this little guy can fair better against the challenges from the big boys than Sir Freddie did.
Isn’t this the airline that charges for a specific seat reservation and there was some talk from people traveling together that the airline was specifically trying to break up people traveling together to force them to upgrade?
Yes, I mentioned in the post that they do charge for seat reservation. As for breaking people up, probably they would do that – similar to the old AirTran. Even factoring in those costs, it is still cheaper than anyone else. Of course, it will not be for everyone but it should be good for competition out of London.
Not to bombard the comments with links to my blog, but you might be also be thinking of this: http://threadtripping.boardingarea.com/2014/06/uncomfortable-ideas-about-uncomfortable-seating-assignments/
No problem, Mikel! Link away – you have great stuff and I would like my readers to catch it. 🙂
Really got excited about the post until i read it was one way (kind of deceptive)…already flew Norwegian for $475 roundtrip to Stockholm and Oslo out of NY. Good experience though on the whole.
Sorry about the confusion. I thought I had prevented that by only mentioning jfk-London. I guess not and sorry you were disappointed!
Glad you appreciated the experience by Norwegian! That is a great deal and the addition of London to their routes should really entice a lot more people to try their airline since more people would jump on that price for London vs Norway (given the tourist numbers).