Jan. 18—Direct flights between Norway and the Hudson Valley could begin as early as this spring.
Norse Atlantic Airways, a new transatlantic budget airline that in October announced service out of New York Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, on Jan. 14 received tentative approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation to operate flights between Stewart and Oslo.
The airline will also operate flights between Norway and Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles.
"We are thrilled by the Department of Transportation's approval of our affordable transatlantic flights," said Norse CEO and Founder Bjørn Tore Larsen in a press release dated Jan. 14. "This significant milestone brings Norse one step closer to launching affordable and more environmentally friendly service to customers traveling between Europe and the United States."
"It will hopefully be the beginning of opening up that European market and the UK when people catch on that it is very easy to fly into Stewart, easy access to New York City," Maureen Halahan, President of Orange County Partnership, told the Mid-Hudson News. "That is what they built the international arrivals building for."
The approval is "another step towards international flights back at Stewart," Town of Newburgh Supervisor Scott Manley wrote in a Facebook post.
Norse Atlantic would be the first airline to use Stewart's new international arrivals building, designed originally to accommodate flights operated by Norwegian Air, which suspended service out of Stewart in March 2019.
Norse Atlantic, with a leased fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, hopes to fill a market gap left by Norwegian Air, which offered affordable nonstop flights between Stewart Airport and Ireland before the Boeing 737 MAX planes the carrier used on those routes were grounded globally due to two deadly crashes. That airline filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 18, 2020. Bjorn Kjos, the former CEO of Norwegian Air, reportedly owns a stake in the new Norse Atlantic carrier, among other investors.
Norse Atlantic in May announced it had entered pre-hire agreements with the U.S. Association of Flight Attendants, which the carrier said will lead to at least 700 U.S. flight attendant jobs, and with the British Pilots Union. In an August press release, the carrier said that its workforce — projected to total 1,600 by next summer — will be permanently employed, versus being classified as contractors, and will be based in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Norway.
In December 2021, Norse received its Air Operator's Certificate by Norway's Civil Aviation Authority and took delivery of its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
The carrier's announcement of its U.S. service came around the same time that Frontier's nonstop flights to Florida from Stewart began. Frontier Airlines began direct service from Newburgh to Orlando, Miami and Tampa in late October and early November.
Halahan announced last week that the new Stewart Air Service Development Committee has been formed in collaboration with the Orange County Chamber of Commerce and Orange County Tourism to build awareness of the airport and its services and expand air travel operations at Stewart.
___
(c)2022 the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)
Visit the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) at www.timesunion.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
