irishguy28

Or you could just use the travel insurance that you SHOULD have, and claim back your out-of-pocket expenses arising from making your arrangements from them; and let them take it up with the airline. @:-)

jetdreamer

I was excited and full of anticipation before boarding a Norwegian plane to Norway from LAX. I downloaded their app to monitor the booking status and for the convenience of paperless boarding pass. I was also impressed with the images and the advertised features of on-board features.

But all that was a great disappointment. First, the in-app boarding pass feature did not work. I was later told by Norwegian representative at LAX that the in-app boarding pass feature would NOT work in the US! That's after going a bit of a hassle at the checkpoint. Second, it's turned out that Norwegian does NOT have ANY employees of its own outside of Oslo airport. That means all services provided by Norwegian are handled by contractors, who more often than not, do not give [moderator edit] about the customers. Thirdly, the so-called advanced on-board features they advertised turned out to be purely gimmicks! I flew "premium class" (there's only two classes: "premium" and "coach" - no first-class). But the service was more then disappointing. The foods were worse than terrible. The crew members (FA) were mostly - if not all - from Thailand. In domestic flights (in Norway), Norwegian tend to operate erratically, again because they're all done by 'contractors'. In some small cities, they close the gates earlier than scheduled because they use minimum number of ground crew to tend the gate. And these guys close the gate early to go home, especially on Fridays and weekends!

Customer service at Norwegian Air Shuttle is virtually NONE! They never respond to email correspondence (only automated senseless reply) by a real person. Phone contacts never get returned. Staff at Oslo airport were completely useless, rude, unprofessional, and robot-like, brain-dead, souless zombies.

I found Norwegian fares to be competitive but based on my personal experience, I would NEVER want to spend a single penny on this so-called "air shuttle", which has pretty much destroyed the national image of small country without another major airline service.

Palal

Most airlines use contractors at outstations.

Like what?

It's an LCC, and they advertise it as such.

Yes, that's well-known. How is that a bad thing?

In Europe, most ground handling is handled by outside companies, not by airlines per EU regs.

Any data to back that up?

SAS is the country's flag carrier. Norwegian Air Shuttle is an LCC, and not a flag carrier.


Sorry, I don't really understand what you're complaining about.

KLouis

Well, OP started a thread that, (s)he thought, would fit a habit shared by many FTers, namely find first world problems to "loudly" complain about. Letting steam out often helps reduce one's blood pressure although, granted, it gets on the nerves of others thus having an adverse effect on many more. Best reaction, therefore, would be to simply ignore this kind of posts...

CPH-Flyer

That has nothing to do with EU regulations. The EU does not interfere in what company is delivering the service. It is the (often consultancy driven) principle that outsourcing saves money, and delivers the same service level.

Kacee

I think many of us would consider this at worst neutral, and in many ways a plus.

Palal

In the US, many airlines do their own ground handling without setting up a separate entity. This is not allowed in the EU. If an airline wants to do its own ground handling, it has to set up a separate company, and the airport has to allow it in.

CPH-Flyer

It just says there needs to be competition, and as part of that the airlines practically speaking do need an internal entity to operate their own ground handling. In effect those are still employees of the airline, just in a 100% owned subsidiary.

NickB

No, that is not correct. An airline can self-handle if it wants. What the reg was about was to prevent a single company (usually this would have been either one associated with the airport owner or with the dominant airline) from having a monopoly over ground handling at a given airport.

NickB

They need a separate entity only if they provide ground-handling services to others. If they just self-handle, they do not need to.

CPH-Flyer

True. However the most likely scenario is that they will not only self handle. And hence "in effect" need an internal entity. But strictly speaking, very true they could just have staff from the main company do the handling.

Palal

Thanks for the clarification.

rieffan

I noted that some of the Norwegian Airlines aircraft have IRISH registration numbers. This is not my imagination either! What is that about?

ExpatSomchai

Dear OP or Dear Mr Cruz,

These tactics will not work.

Ta Ta For Now

ft101

Registered in Ireland for various routing and financial advantages.