Originally Posted by CC1E

I've been a longtime lurker, especially in the old CO Onepass forum and current United MileagePlus forum. But, this is my first post.


About six months ago I bought JFK-LGW Premium tickets from Norwegian traveling out 6/30 and back 7/10 on 787-9 aircraft both ways. I had never flown them, but the pricing was excellent for a product that looked to be between Economy+ and Business. I'm a bigger guy, so seat room was my primary concern.


A few days before my flight I started checking the on-time performance of the outbound flight on flightaware when I notice that instead of a Norwegian 787-9, a 777-200 has been operating on the JFK-LGW route. Apparently Norwegian had a 787-9 down. In addition, I could no longer see a seat map for the outbound flight on Norwegian's site. I was concerned so I called and did an online chat with Norwegian to confirm we had seats in the premium section of the replacement aircraft. I was assured that we would.


The day of the flight we arrived at JFK 3 hours before departure time to check-in and check our bags (Norwegian doesn't allow online checkin to/from JFK). The counter agent tells me we've been downgraded from Premium to Economy since the 777-200 has fewer seats than a 787-9. I'm obviously livid, but the agent and his supervisor say all decisions are made in Oslo and my only option is to cancel. I was traveling with my wife for vacation and last minute tickets on another airline would have been crazy expensive, so I really had no option but to accept the downgrade. I find it completely unacceptable that Norwegian knew about the equipment swap days in advance and didn't inform me of the downgrade before check-in.


To make things even worse, we were placed in the middle section of the plane and they refused to move us to an exit row or bulkhead. The counter agent also lied to us about the third seat in our section being blocked off (someone was seated in in it). Finally, the plane was a couple hours delayed, as seems to be standard practice for this flight.


I've flown in Economy on cheap domestic airlines before and this was so much worse. My knees were jammed into the seat in front of me even before the person in front of me put their seat back. Apparently they had added seats to economy (reducing legroom) on this 777-200 to partially make up for the lower seating capacity it has compared to a 787-9.


The 777-200 ended up being operated by EuroAtlantic, a Portugese charter company. It was a 20 years old plane with no working IFE and the most of the FAs didn't seem to speak or understand English.


By the time we returned home 10 days later Norwegian had fixed their 787-9 and we were given Premium seats at check-in. However, after boarding the plane, we were told that the cargo handlers had made a cut in the wall of the cargo area and needed engineering sign-off before we could depart. The pilot told us that they had to send pictures to Boeing to confirm the plane was flyable. Always nice to hear your aircraft has questionable airworthiness! That process delayed us three hours while we sat on the plane. We were in the first row, so I got to hear the FAs complaining that they had to do an extra water service while we waited and they should be compensated for it. Very unprofessional.


Bottom line is, if you book Norwegian expect delays and realize that they regularly use sub-par charters to fill-in when they have equipment issues. Take a look at flightaware or another site before you book to see the on-time performance of the route you're considering and what aircraft they're actually using.


I've learned my lesson and won't risk flying with them again.