Over the last five years, there has been an explosion of low-cost airlines promising to fly travelers to places formerly only served by mainstream airlines.
In the U.S., new low-cost carriers such as Avelo and Breeze Airways have been moving in on longstanding budget players such as Spirit (SAVE) -) and Frontier (FRON) -) while across the ocean a new airline called Fly Atlantic is currently planning to launch out of Belfast in 2025. The budget carrier is hoping to turn Northern Ireland into a stopover for travelers between North America and Europe in the same way that Icelandair did to Reykjavik over the last three decades.
Related: More Low-Cost Airlines Are Going Transatlantic
Running its first flight in February 2022, Norway-based Norse Atlantic Airways launched with a similar model of cheap, no-frills flights between several East Coast U.S. cities and European capitals. It currently runs flights to London, Paris, Rome and Oslo from cities such as New York and Miami as well as some flights from Oslo to Bangkok and Los Angeles.
Norse Atlantic Airways
New route meant to 'cater to the demand for travel to Greece'
For the coming spring, Norse is also preparing to launch its first flight to Greece from New York City. The upcoming JFK-Athens International Airport (ATH) flight is a summer seasonal route that will run between May 30 and Oct. 26 and take place up to five times a week on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner (BA) -).
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"This launch underscores our commitment to meeting the evolving travel needs of our passengers," Norse founder Bjorn Tore Larsen said in a statement announcing the new route. "We believe this route will not only cater to the demand for travel to Greece but will also create opportunities for cultural exchange and business collaborations between these two vibrant destinations."
To draw attention to the new flight, Norse is offering those who commit to traveling in advance a promotional rate of $249 each way (the regular rate for the same flight booked last-minute or during the most popular summer travel dates will be around $1,000.)
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The rate can be spotted on the carrier's website on some mid-week days in September and October but the standard price currently seen for a weekend flight in June is at around $569.
With post-pandemic travel currently in the midst of a surge and Europe seeing particularly high demand, airlines have been reworking new networks to serve more smaller cities on the continent. Last fall, United Airlines (UAL) -) announced that it would be launching new flights to Reykjavik, Rome, Brussels, Malaga and the Portuguese city of Faro as well as starting its summer routes to Lisbon and Barcelona from Washington Dulles International Airport a few months earlier than last year due to high demand.
Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) also recently launched a new flight from New York to Naples and brought back summer routes to Ireland's Shannon and Switzerland's Zurich while Great Britain's Virgin Atlantic (SPCE) -) will be running seven daily flights between London and New York by next summer alongside its numerous other routes to different U.S. cities.
