Is it worth buying cheap Norse Atlantic Airlines tickets for next summer?

We flew LAX – LHR several years ago on Norwegian Air Shuttle (also a “low cost long haul carrier’) in their premier class, which was actually pretty decent. Sadly, COVID did them in… they went belly-up, but were able to reinvent themselves as a short-haul airline.

However, a number of their execs got together, leased the 787s Norwegian used on their long haul flights and voila! Norse Air is born.

Since the cruise we just went on ended in NYC, I checked on the cost of flights to London (hell, we’re halfway there, right?)

$902 one way for two, all in, including seat selection (weirdly a $60/seat add on, who flies premium without seat selection??), one checked bag, one carry on bag, preferred boarding and premium seating.

That’s the thing. As long as the service is bare-minimum acceptable, whatever. The goodie bags just eventually get tossed. I bring my own snackies. So…

I’m all about the real estate. How much room is there for mah backside? Yes, it’s shrunk a bit lately (my rumpy, not the airplane seats, they’re still unbelievably narrow) but I like my elbow room. 17” across seats make for a painful experience. It’s just wrong. These babies are more like 20” plus the armrest.

The trip home was quite a bit more expensive, but of the total for two of $1,680, $740 was taxes (a whopping 44%), and of course the distance was at least 1/2 again as far if not more. And it was still upper class/premium/big seat happiness.

No, it’s not a lie-flat business class seat, but it reclines quite a way and it’s certainly possible to catch sleep in it. It’s better than domestic first class where there’s no footrest (they have foot and leg rests in premium).

Norse gets panned a LOT in the press because they nickel & dime you (which they do if you’re in economy… seriously), and they freely admit they do not have a phone number. Don’t bother looking for it, it doesn’t exist. If you’re having trouble, the chatbot is your best option.

We started out on a good foot because of something totally unrelated to Norse. We were kicked off the ship at 7:30 am and our flight left at 6:20 pm. UGH.

So we rented a hotel room for a day. Best. Idea. Ever.

We could’ve opted for attempting to get into a lounge for a few hours prior to the flight… generally $75/each, but as you can’t check luggage until four hours before your flight, that doesn’t help much when you arrive at JFK nine hours prior.

Instead, we slept a little longer and didn’t shower that morning on the ship. Shot down to breakfast at 6:30 and were ready to go when called at 7:15.

Took the (cruise provided) bus to JFK and got on the AirTrain to Federal Circle, which is where you catch the shuttle to the hotel, which for the Hilton Garden Inn at least runs every half hour.

For $90, we had the use of a room from 8 am – 5 pm (we left at 2:30), during which time we showered, laundered everything we could, Door-Dashed lunch, Beloved took a nap and were slovenly hanging out watching TV while reclining on the beds.

Compare that to $150 for four hours in a lounge after five in hard plastic chairs before security… if you can find seating.

Boarding the flight was a bit of an adventure. JFK is under renovation challenged only, I think, by Boston’s Big Dig. EVERYTHING is torn up right now as they implement a $19 billion improvement project.

I’m not sure that’s why they parked the plane in Brooklyn, but we had to bus it out to where the equipment was parked all by its lonely self. Then we had to hump the “carry on bags” (aka the 22” suitcase) up the air stairs ourselves.

No, you can’t check the carry on bag, the person at the check in desk told me, unless you’d like to pay for it.

HEEEEEEEELLLLL no. Cheap is what we were after and cheap is what we’re taking. I’ll carry it (not realizing I’d be scaling the aviation equivalent of Mount Everest while clutching it).

Premium was, predictably, completely full as one of their income generations is tempting people to take the upgrade when they get to the airport. They’re also very proud of their first quarter 95% load ratio (meaning 95% of the seats were filled). Don’t be thinking you and your travel partner can book the middle group of premium seats (seating is 2 – 3 – 2) with an empty in between you. Not gonna happen.

The dinner meal was actually quite decent – Beloved had the beef stroganoff with rice and I opted for the mac and cheese. The entrees were described by the purser who, with her strong Northern Ireland accent, said it came topped with I-do-not-know-what, so I asked the flight attendant handing out the meals.

Crispy kale, said the young lady, who did not appear old enough to be serving the offered wine… but then, it’s a Norwegian airline, what do I know about their drinking/serving laws?

An entire kale plant was deposited on top of the pasta… and it might’ve been crispy several hours before, but when I got it, it was… not. I glopped the gloop onto the lid and ate the remainder after salting it (don’t be hating on my salt consumption, my blood pressure runs low and the doc says to salt my meals…)

The chocolate cake dessert was good, but the salad (quinoa) just didn’t look appealing to me. Neither of us ate it.

Landed a short six hours later at London Gatwick. Again, they’re conserving at much as they can by using the most distant gates and baggage carousels available. I think we parked in Brighton and walked. Holy cow.

Thing about Gatwick, you pee when you find a loo. There are precious few lavs so even if you don’t want to, go anyway.

My biggest concern about Norse is their long term viability, which is why I suggest you not gleefully purchase tickets for next year. Their financial statements are… not inspiring.

Beloved said this next bit is a LOT of finance, but… that’s kinda my happy place. I won’t be offended if you skip it. Hell, I won’t know, right?

Their interim report, released with first quarter 2025 results, admits they’re concerned about what’ll happen this winter when demand falls off. They’re also not entirely convinced they’re a going concern. This is bad.

They acknowledge they owe back taxes of USD $18 million, for which they’re hoping to get the IRS to give them a payment plan. Just like you would ask your kid if they admitted to not paying their taxes, the immediate question is why the f…. Um… heck not?!

Weeeeeeellll, they had passenger taxes “not forwarded” after the ticket buyers (passengers) paid them (oooops), so Norse diverted that cash, apparently out of a need for liquidity (AKA they didn’t have the cash to pay other bills, so they used that tax money… my guess, not something they admitted… unsurprisingly, they didn’t say in their financials exactly why they didn’t have the cash pay up when required, just that it was sadly overlooked, sorta…)

They have, unsurprisingly, discovered the low cost game is a hard, hard mistress (okay, fellas, y’all were in charge at Norwegian, which was seriously wobbly before Covid came and finished them off…).

So… Norse is changing its business plan and increasing their ACMI, which means Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance. They lease those 787 Dreamliners they’re so proud of, and now they’re sub-leasing “up to six” aircraft, complete with crew, to IndiGo (huge Indian airline) – at least one is already in service.

This is good for shareholders and mostly good for passengers, as it decreases the likelihood of arriving at the airport to hear “yeah, we went bankrupt, you need to catch another airline home…”.

It’s meant they’ve canceled some routes to free up the aircraft (they closed their Florida base and offered to have staff relocate to NYC, to which one person replied “we’re already working second jobs because you don’t pay enough to live HERE…”)

Sub-leasing provides predictable income and eliminates “unneeded” aircraft and crew. Those wanting to get from Ft. Lauderdale to Europe might disagree, but there it is…

Also, they’re not doing as Avelo is (ACMI with the US government, flying those unfortunate individuals nabbed by ICE to giant prisons in Central America), so they don’t have that little PR nightmare.

Bummer is, in their financials, they’ve already recognized a $28.7 million gain on the sub-leases, which won’t happen again, so the reduced loss will almost certainly rebound. Drat.

That’s disappointing when your total assets just slipped under $1 billion and total equity is negative $225 million and growing (like, in a bad way).

Their current ratio is 0.48%… yikes.

That means their debt due in less than one year ($400 million) is more than double the amount of their assets that will be available to use as payments within one year.

But SHOCKER! They’re selling tickets on the cheaps for next May. Yeeeeah… we’re not buying that far ahead. I would suggest you don’t, either.