Originally Posted by
Beckles
So, I was in Milwaukee for a meeting yesterday and a couple of folks I was meeting with told me how they flew Norweigian out of Milwaukee down to Mexico (one to Cancun, the other to Puerto Vallarata).
I arrived at the airport a few hours before my flight yesterday evening and sure enough there were two Norweigian 737's parked on the D concourse ... parked there the whole time I was there with no activity.
From
this article it appears these are charter flights, so I'm guessing maybe Norweigian doesn't really have any risk on these flights. BUT, I'm not sure how any airline can make much money with brand new planes just parked for hours on end during the day.
Where are the crews for these flights coming from? Do they have a crew base in MKE?
The business model for their operations in MKE seems dubious to me ...
That is an interesting one. I know that they have been operating New York to Martinique and other islands in the Caribean that are overseas teritories of EU nations, thus Falling under the EU US open skies agreement. The argument was amongst others that they had spare capacity of planes in the European Winter season.
I guess the reason for operating these are the same. However I do wonder how they get permission to operate between US and Mexico? I guess it has to be somesort of wetlease construction.
I guess as opposed to parking the planes the whole day if the capacity is not needed at all, this is still favourable. Any revenue on the airframe is better than zero revenue on the airframe.