BUDGET airline Norwegian has confirmed that it will not resume its transatlantic flights from Shannon and Cork this year.
A spokesperson for Shannon Group said they were disappointed for its passengers with the news that Norwegian was unable to resume operations as a result of the continued grounding of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
“The world-wide grounding of the 737 Max aircraft is having a serious impact for Shannon passengers. Proportionally, no other Irish airport has such a high level of activity operated by the 737 Max aircraft.
“At peak this aircraft type would have operated 13 weekly flights from Shannon to North America. We now estimate that the loss of these flights, which include this year’s Air Canada service, will mean a loss of over 120,000 seats at Shannon in 2019 and as a result our overall passenger numbers will be down.
“We remain confident that once the 737 Max aircraft is back flying that these services will be restored, as they were extremely popular in 2018″, the statement concluded.
by Tom McCullough
