Route news: Norse drops Kingston, BA adds more Faro flights, Southend gains Alicante

Route news in brief:

Norse Atlantic drops Kingston before launch

One of the nails in Norwegian’s coffin was that it chose to fly long haul routes from London Gatwick with strong seasonality on a year-round basis.

Norse Atlantic, which has (literally) inherited Norwegian’s long haul fleet, is loathe to make the same mistake. It was planning three Caribbean routes that will make the most of its aircraft during the quieter winter months when leisure passengers are less keen on a (cold) USA East Coast city break:

• Barbados – daily
• Kingston (Jamaica) – three flights per week
• Montego Bay (Jamaica) – four flights per week

Two weeks ago we told you that the start of services had been pushed back by a month to 1st December. Now, Kingston has been scrapped entirely before a single flight has taken off.

Norse desperately needs to find winter destinations that work. It is admittedly still early days for them, and Kingston may have been a bit too far off the traditional luxury ‘bucket and spade’ map.

Perhaps Antigua or even the Maldives may work better? The Middle East is also interesting, but it’s not as if the airports of Qatar, Abu Dhabi or Dubai would roll out the red carpet to someone aiming to compete with their national carriers.

British Airways brings forward Faro launch to February

I’m not sure when this dropped into ba.com, but Aeroroutes notes that British Airways has brought forward the launch of London Heathrow to Faro for 2024.

Flights will now start on 1st February instead of 31st March.

If you had an Avios ticket booked on one of the Gatwick services in February or March you may want to consider paying the £35 per person change fee and swapping to Heathrow instead.

easyJet adds a new Southend to Alicante route

Finally, the slow rehabilitation of London Southend Airport continues – although whether flights can return in bulk before the shareholders lose patience is another question.

easyJet is adding another route for the winter season.

Southend to Alicante will operate twice per week, with 13.10 departures every Thursday and Sunday.

easyJet will now fly seven routes from Southend – Alicante, Geneva, Malaga, Majorca, Faro, Amsterdam and Paris.