Norwegian cancels summer service to Vegas: Too hot

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/t ... st-too-hot

I guess they haven't worked out flying out in the evening....

The flight to LGW leaves at 5pm - hardly the midday quoted in the article. VS leaves about 3.30, seemingly without issue.

So something doesn't add up.

A convenient excuse to hide disappointing loads? I suspect we'll see an announcement soon about a new TATL route for the summer that, entirely coincidentally of course, will be more "family friendly" than LAS.

BA, incidentally, have made it no secret that they now regard Norwegian and its TATL aspirations as a major threat - hence the recent announcements of new routes to FLL and OAK and the "densification" of its LGW 777s to pack in more Y seats (at the expense of J). Will be interesting to see how this one plays out. I'm sure we all remember what happened to Laker and the "dirty tricks" campaign to try and kill VS.

The flight to LGW leaves at 5pm - hardly the midday quoted in the article. VS leaves about 3.30, seemingly without issue.

So something doesn't add up.

A convenient excuse to hide disappointing loads? I suspect we'll see an announcement soon about a new TATL route for the summer that, entirely coincidentally of course, will be more "family friendly" than LAS.

BA, incidentally, have made it no secret that they now regard Norwegian and its TATL aspirations as a major threat - hence the recent announcements of new routes to FLL and OAK and the "densification" of its LGW 777s to pack in more Y seats (at the expense of J). Will be interesting to see how this one plays out. I'm sure we all remember what happened to Laker and the "dirty tricks" campaign to try and kill VS.

Maybe evening slots are more expensive or just not available?

Reasons are in the article :-
Norwegian’s heat issues stem from an unusually high passenger capacity aboard the Boeing 787-8 jetliners that the carrier uses on its Las Vegas routes. Most airlines operate the plane with an average of 200 seats, but Norwegian puts 291 seats for sale on the 787-8 aircraft to keep costs down as part of its low-cost model, Jones said.

“Given the weight of those additional Norwegian passengers and all that accompanies them, the airline this summer found close to 300 people on board, including crew, and its planes’ ability to take-off during high-temperature periods was sometimes limited,” Jones said.

So in other words they're pushing their 787-8s too hard for the temperatures they operate in? That's the only difference I can think of from say, an A380 operating in the summer Dubai heat, which is potentially hotter and heavier.

Wow I always thought the VS one left later, I seem to recall checking the luggage into the Venetian, then going and having lunch and chilling before heading to the airport. Perhaps getting confused with the BA Option which goes much later.

I suppose VS has to turn around about be out 10:30-11:30ish the next day, so would be.

Otherwise, yes, it's interesting that reality is impacting such routes. The passengers plus luggage load making it much higher. I wonder if this is just the dreamliner, or shown up by Norwegian's reliance of them. They seemed to be claiming quite high loads though, and do run LAS flights from Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm as well as Gatwick.

They do seem to be expanding and the loads high, so I don't think this is about family friendly routes, I don't doubt they'll run as many to the house of mouse that the market can bear...

When VS used to operate the 747-200 to LAS it was quite often weight restricted due to the heat. I guess the 747-400 doesn't have this problem

Norwegian v BA on long haul ex-LGW is going to be a "survival of the fittest" blood bath.

Do BA do ex-LGW to Vegas nowadays? I know they did heathrow and vegas at one point but thought they cut the gatwick one.

Do BA do ex-LGW to Vegas nowadays? I know they did heathrow and vegas at one point but thought they cut the gatwick one.

They did both but they have cut the LGW flight and moved it to LHR.

If BA want to compete with Norwegian then they will have to up their game. It's not all about price but service (which is rapidly going down hill on BA)

BA trumpeted when the started the LGW-JFK flight that they were the only airline to fly to JFK from 3 London airports yet they put one of the worst planes on the route! If I knew it was a good plane I'd give it a try as LGW is easy to get to for me.

It's no good opening new routes but if you put on a rubbish plane people will go elsewhere.

Back in the days of Maxjet out flight home from Vegas had to stop at JFK to refuel as due to the heat they were unable to take off with enough fuel for the Transatlantic crossing. This was on a 767 I think, and we only found out on check in.

Norwegian cram more passengers into their planes than most, I assume the extra passenger weight its to blame and cannot be mitigated by reducing cargo.

Back in the days of Maxjet out flight home from Vegas had to stop at JFK to refuel as due to the heat they were unable to take off with enough fuel for the Transatlantic crossing. This was on a 767 I think, and we only found out on check in.

Norwegian cram more passengers into their planes than most, I assume the extra passenger weight its to blame and cannot be mitigated by reducing cargo.

They can sell less seats and take less cargo, it would just be more profitable to have the aircraft on another route most likely.

Perhaps they could fly it with less passengers instead?