The biggest capacity increases in low-cost wide-body traffic this year have come from Asian carriers, such as Singapore’s
Remember the days when New York-London, Los Angeles-Paris and Chicago-Barcelona round trips were sold for around $200? In the minds of many Americans, the much-touted “long-haul, low-cost” transformation of air travel ended when the big disrupter of this market, Norwegian Air Shuttle NAS 2.68%increase; green up pointing triangle, was forced to exit trans-Atlantic routes in 2021.
Yet the revolution may be more alive than ever, just in a different form.
Schedules for July and August show that budget airlines plan to offer 2.7 million monthly seats on wide-body jets such as the Boeing BA 0.33%increase; green up pointing triangle 787 Dreamliner and Airbus’s AIR -0.39%decrease; red down pointing triangle A330 and A350. In 2018 and 2019, which was the heyday of Norwegian and its peers—namely IAG-owned Level, Malaysia’s AirAsia X 5238 -0.61%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Australia’s Jetstar—that figure was below two million, according to Cirium Diio Mi.
Excerpt from WSJ
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