Comments

1. Would it be possible to book the fare with cash and use points to upgrade?

2. Any deals on biz/F fares?

3. A twitter discussion I saw today with @theflightdeal says this is with “Level”, the ultra-low-cost carrier launched by Iberia. Says you can tell by the 26XX flt number. Google “Iberia Level” and there’s a wiki page (2-class svc: econ and prem econ) and a review or two.

4. Every airline says N/A, is this something that comes available after a specific date?

5. Caveat Emptor. Similar with YUL-ORY and BOS/LAX/OAK-BCN, these routes are currently marketed by LEVEL and operated by IB, so there’s no guarantee you will get the full service you expect.

6. This doesn’t make sense: “Taking a look at Iberia’s fare basis ANLNOBGK which puts you on British Airways non-stop New York – Paris,”. BA does NOT fly non-stop from the US to any other country except the UK.

   Might be BA marketed flight…but not BA metal

7. @Mike

   BA Open skies https://www.britishairways.com/en-us/information/partners-and-alliances/openskies

   “OpenSkies invites you to an uniquely premium experience on our non-stop flights between New York and Paris, offering exclusive in-flight comfort and quick and easy boarding. In Paris, we operate from Orly airport (ORY), conveniently located near the city centre, and in New York we fly to Newark (EWR) airport. “

8. Of course, these “great” low airfares for travel between September through March just so happen to conveniently offer the “happy coincidence” of depressing yields and siphoning bookings from an already cash starved Norwegian as it heads into, and then attempts to survive, the brutal winter season, which is a virtual graveyard for many financially struggling airlines…

   …literally mere days after it was reported that “Bloody Awful 2.0”…er Bedbug…I mean, BRITISH Airways’ parent, IAG, has already acquired nearly 5% of the stock of Norwegian, which most experts see as an opening move by BA/IAG to position itself to have the inside track to take-over Norwegian as that airline continues to burn through cash, which will only accelerate if Norwegian’s bookings are siphoned off by BA, its other IAG-owned airlines, oneworld alliance members like AA, plus the other cartel aligned (faux) competitors like SkyTeam and Star in general, and especially now with the price of oil climbing higher towards $80 per barrel…

   …such as “happy coincidence” indeed!

   …just as Norwegian was finally positioned to expand relatively unfettered for the first time after clearing nearly all of the bs regulatory hurdles (stalling tactics) the Big 3 cartel airline alliances threw in its way…

   …and as it was begining to receive enough Boeing 737-8 MAXes, with the first of its even longer range Airbus A321LRs due next year, too, that would Norwegian to pose a serious competive threat to BA (and its cohorts in the Big 3 cartel airline alliances) by offering an array of nonstop destinations using narrow-body/single aisle aircraft to cities that virtually ALL of the other airlines lack comparable aircraft to offer with their much older, range limited 757s, which, of course, would put Norwegian in a position to upset the very comfy “arrangement” the Big 3 cartel alliance airlines have with their fortress hub to fortress hub connections between their respective gateways/other hubs on both sides of the Atlantic…

   …so of course, with the biggest overall competitive threat to its lucrative trans-Atlantic long haul operations in London in decades since the demise of Freddie Laker’s SkyTrain, British Caledonian and British Midland International (BMI)…

   …and in the years since BA’s already overwhelming dominance over the North Atlantic was further cemented after its anit-trust immunized joint-venture alliance with American Airlines all but guaranteed BA unrivaled supremacy over all other airlines, including Virgin Atlantic, which itself was forced to hookup with its now 49% owner, Delta Air Lines, just to ensure its own survival once it became clear how mismatched Virgin Atlantic would be attempting to take on an anti-trust immunized BA-AA alliance on its own…

   …so with its “Sugar Daddy” Delta, which is one of the Big 3 Legacy airline “winners” to emerge from the receding era of deregulation in the United States into the ascending/already emergent airline oligopoly era, Virgin Atlantic, and its 49% owner/nearly parent company, Delta, are more than happy to have already succeeded in becoming BA’s runner up, or junior member, of a near duopoly in the UK-USA market…

   …that, of course, would also be threatened were Norwegian to succeed in its ambition to upend the cartel controlled/owned skies over the North Atlantic, and especially between the UK and USA…

   …and so now, just as everyone in the industry knows Norwegian’s cash cushion already was so low, it was forced to raise $168 million earlier this year to keep its lenders at bay, BA/IAG (and its oneworld cartel alliance members) launch a fantastically low fare sale for flights between September and March, that obviously the other two cartel alliances’ groups will just “have to match” at a time when Norwegian’s cash (barring some sort of White Knight coming in to rescue it) will be facing the normal off/low season weakness, and at risk of yet again becoming too low for the terms the loans it has with its lenders, and they then demand Norwegian seek safe harbor into the open arms of an already expectant BA…

   …and who knows? …maybe years from now it will also emerge that BA/IAG and the other two cartel members (SkyTeam and Star) conspired to push Norwegian over the edge to get rid of it…

   …exactly as happened after Sir Freddie Laker’s SkyTrain took on BA and the other dominant airlines of that era that viewed the North Atlantic as their own skies to rule, and they all ganged up on his airline to successfully end his attempt to introduce, and when proven popular between New York and London, expand, long haul, “no frills”…

   [SIDEBAR: nb that was the term used back in the day long before the clever ones in recent years earned their big paydays by coming up with new fangled, catchy terms like “unbundled”, “options”, “perks”, “only paying for what you want”, “Bare Fares”, or, of course, “Basic Economy” in order to make those expensive Ancillary Fee upsells sound like sexier, modern day innovations, when in fact airlines like Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) or Southwest Airlines long ago sought to offer basic air transportation between point A and point B, and Laker’s SkyTrain when his airline offered low fare, no frills service – a seat aboard his widebody, high density McDonnell Douglas DC-10s – and charged for virtually everything else]

   …trans-Atlantic flights between London’s then vastly underutilized Stansted Airport and several cities in the United States.

   …just as the Leviathans, including BA, came together to fend off Laker Airways, a plucky challenger threatening to upset the airline cartel of that era (when the exceptionally restrictive Bermuda 2 treaty restricted competition between the UK and USA)…

   …so, too, now does it certainly appear the cartel of our era, led by BA’s very deep pocketed parent company, IAG, are desperately seeking to see to it that the emerging threat to their dominance over the North Atlantic posed by the “Laker Airways” of our era, Norwegian, comes to an end…the sooner the better…

   …and what better way to achieve that, than by offering such spectacularly low airfares at a time when Norwegian is already clinging at the edge of a financial cliff for its survival?

   Much as I already believe our skies have gone from one extreme of too many competitors to one where there clearly are DESPERATELY TOO FEW oligopolists running the show, I’d be far more excited to see a consortium led by Delta, Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet come together to takeover Norwegian instead of an already too overpowering BA…

   …at least the prospect of a formidable counterweight to BA-AA in London would emerge…

   …as opposed to an even bigger, even more arrogant, and even more “Bloody Awful 2.0” than it already is, BA, will be once it gains control over not one, but quite possibly, very soon, TWO of London’s key airports, Gatwick AND Heathrow…

   …talk about something truly “Bloody Awful” for flyers…BA “owning” both major airports in London…

   …that would not just be “Bloody Awful”…seems more like the nightmare scenario for hops across the pond between our country and the UK with so little competition to keep them in check…

9. PS:

   BA’s IAG owned “siblings”, Iberia, and especially Aer Lingus were also being challenged by upstart Norwegian, with Norwegian launching trans-Atlantic service from Barcelona to several USA cites…

   …but for Aer Lingus, Norwegian’s launch of nonstops from several airports in Ireland to cities in the northeast in the USA last year with narrowbody Boeing 737-8MAXes, with likely even more, and bigger cities in the USA after the far more capable Airbus A321LRs begin arriving next year, posed a very serious threat to that IAG-owned airline, and its foundational business model of offering a lower cost option to/from Europe via connections at Aer Lingus’ (very nice) hub in Dublin (which is an EXCELLENT option when compared to the far more expensive nonstops offered by the Big 3 Cartel-ists/Oligopolists when they’re otherwise NOT engaged in an effort to kill off a rival with incredibly low fare “sales” that have a “whiff” of predation intended to push Norwegian over the edge…

   …even, if such predation is (of course) denied, and will never be proven until long after (if ever) the deed is done, that BA skillfully and ruthlessly killed off yet another airline that dared to take it, its siblings, and the other two members of the SkyCartel, on…

   Past is often prologue, and when it comes to fending off (as it did with Virgin Atlantic), or even outright killing off competitors (Laker Airways/SkyTrain, British Caledonian, British Midland International) to its very lucrative long haul, international/ intercontinental routes, history has shown several times over, few do it better than BA does…

   btw…There’s an EXCELLENT ARTICLE in Saturday’s (April 14th) Independent newspaper that discusses BA’s successful history of eliminating, and then taking over the assets of, its competitors available at this link:

   https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/norwegian-airways-takeover-iag-british-airways-level-primera-air-a8303116.html

   It’s one of the better articles I’ve seen since news broke that BA’s (plus Aer Lingus and Iberia’s) corporate parent, IAG (International Airlines Group), acquired nearly 5% of the stock of Norwegian Air!