Norwegian to add US-Barcelona flights, increasing competition

Norwegian Air Shuttle Wednesday said it planned to start flights to Barcelona from four US cities next summer, heightening competition with US rivals to the popular tourist destination. The announcement comes as Delta and others say Norwegian is adding flights that exceed traveller demand, pushing down fares and hurting airlines' revenue. As major US carriers scale back their growth plans in Europe, Norwegian is taking up some of the slack. "It's an opportunity, I would say," Norwegian's CCO Thomas Ramdahl said, suggesting his airline can operate some routes more efficiently than US carriers. "A network carrier could pull out because it's more profitable for them to (connect) through a bigger city rather than having a direct flight," he said. "Looking at (our) flying point-to-point - it will boost the market, and it will also probably steal from the hubs" of major airlines. The Barcelona flights underscore the ambitions of Europe's third-biggest budget carrier, which started New York-Paris flights in July, to rapidly expand its long-haul business from the US. Norwegian is taking advantage of an aviation agreement to liberalise travel between the US and the EU, updated in 2011, which allows airlines from non-EU states Norway and Iceland to fly anywhere between the two blocs. The carrier has also relied on the fuel-efficient 787 jetliner from Boeing Co to keep costs low and cut fares on trans-Atlantic routes.<br/>