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Hello and welcome to the The Atlantic Update for Wednesday 14 March 2018, providing a weekly bulletin on developments on transatlantic travel between Europe and North America. The Atlantic Update is published every Wednesday morning at 06:00 GMT.
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US East Coast Severe Weather
The US East Coast has once again been beset by severe weather. On this occasion by Winter Storm Skylar.
There has been significant disruption to US East Coast airports, particularly in Boston and New York.
Delta has cancelled approximately 400 flights and expects to resume a normal schedule today, Wednesday 14 March 2018. JetBlue has proactively cancelled a similar number of flights up to Thursday 15 March 2018.
Both BA and Virgin have implemented flexible rebooking policies allowing passengers due to travel up to Wednesday 14 March to rebook up to Saturday 17 March 2018.
Norwegian moots Canadian flights
Norwegian is in the process of securing regulatory approval to operate flights between Europe and Canada, reports Canada’s public broadcaster CBC.
Whilst Norwegian is at pains to emphasise that it has not yet announced any planned routes, this is interesting for a number of reasons. Norwegian has traditionally pursued growth in untapped markets. Canadian airports are not known for low charges and fees. There are already well established low cost airlines operating between Europe and Canada, namely Air Canada Rouge, WestJet and Air Transat. Both WestJet and Air Canada are due to start operating the Boeing 737-800 MAX to Europe later this year, which Norwegian also has on order. WestJet launches London Gatwick – Halifax on Monday 30 April 2018. It’s hard to see what competitive advantage Norwegian will have here.
Virgin Atlantic unbundles its long-haul economy
ICYMI, Virgin Atlantic has, in a slightly overcooked announcement, confirmed it is to follow its transatlantic joint-venture Delta and launch two new economy products, Economy Delight and Economy Light.
This means that the concept of “basic economy” is firmly established in transatlantic travel, albeit airlines are adopting slightly different policies which is inevitably going to cause confusion amongst passengers.
More details here.
The Atlantic Update is published every Wednesday at 06:00 GMT. If you have any comments, suggestions or tips then please drop us a line at mail [@] londonairtravel.com
