Norwegian ‘is taking its foot off gas' in Cork

AIRLINE Norwegian seems to be ‘taking their foot off the gas’ regarding US flights going out of Cork Airport, a West Cork councillor has claimed.

Cllr Paul Hayes (SF) expressed his concerns about the future of the Cork to Providence flights, at a meeting of the local authority this week. His comments followed the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max by the European aviation authorities, due to safety concerns.

Currently, flights to and from Cork Airport are being re-routed through Dublin Airport until June 30th.

‘I just think a bit more pressure needs to be put back on Norwegian because we have put such an emphasis on developing the transatlantic route and we have an awful  lot of twinning arrangements made in the New England area, including Maine and Scituate, and all that area south of Boston,’ said Cllr Hayes.

‘Norwegian seems to be taking their foot off the gas with regards to Cork. Going back to the original decision, they used Cork Airport and the transatlantic flight to get a licence, and I think since then they have put more of an emphasis on flights from Dublin and Shannon.’

While he acknowledged that it’s out of Cork Airport’s hands, he suggested that the Council should write back to the airport to ask Norwegian why they haven’t reverted back to using the original aircraft that they used for six months out of Cork, when the Boeing 737 MAX wasn’t available.

Cllr Danny Collins (Ind) agreed that there is a lot of uncertainty regarding these flights in and out of Cork Airport, and cited an example of a friend who wanted to book flights to Cork, but was afraid to do so in case the flights go to Dublin instead.

County mayor Patrick Gerard Murphy said they would write back to Cork Airport to ‘reinvigour’ negotiations with Norwegian.