I meant to include in the original post that I was able to claim 75% downgrade refund for the outbound segment. Norwegian honored that. It didn't even remotely make up for the terrible seat. 4 hours into that flight I would have paid anything not to be sitting where I was.


I've also been attempting to claim 300Euro for my wife and I based on the return flight being over 3 hours late arriving at JFK. I provided Norwegian with evidence, including the flightaware tracking and a picture of the onboard status screen showing we were still going 0mph 3+ hours after we were supposed to takeoff. It seems like Norwegian is going to shirk their responsibilities on that compensation. I'll submit a complaint to the UK CAA if they do.


Understood that any airline could have mechanical issues and a plane swap. But, most mainline carriers wouldn't have to rely on a charter plane & crew. Also, most airlines allow online checkin (which would have let me see the downgrade 24 hours in advance) or they would have notified about a C-to-Y downgrade. Finally, if there was a C-to-Y downgrade most airlines would have been more accommodative about putting the displaced C customers in a decent seat in Y. Pretty much every question/request from me was met with "they control it all in Oslo."


I mentioned it in my original post, but the Norwegian checkin agent blatantly lied to me about them blocking an open seat next to my wife and I since we'd been downgraded. There was no way for them to do that given that the 772 had lower capacity than a 789. There were quite a few people at the gate who had bought Y tickets and been put on standby due to the reduced seating capacity. I didn't stand around to find out, but I think a lot of them were denied boarding. I spoke with one of them and he said he had found out about the smaller plane at checkin and been put on standby. Completely irresponsible given that Norwegian knew for days that a 772 would serve that route instead of the advertised 789.