Norwegian reopens bases in Norway, to increase fleet

Norwegian has declared that Norway is “opening up” with the government’s recent removal of pandemic control measures on travel, prompting the recovering carrier to reopen its bases at Bergen, Stavanger, and Trondheim. The airline said it had experienced a steady rise in demand for flights since May, and now that Norwegians are no longer discouraged from travelling to other countries as long as they hold a vaccine pass and follow their destination country’s restrictions, the company claimed to have seen “a very large increase in ticket sales,” leading to the bases reopening. Norwegian had seen little or no activity at the bases since it parked virtually all of its aircraft in March 2020. The bases were later formally closed on November 10. From Bergen the airline currently flies to 13 destinations, five of them within Norway including Stavanger (22x weekly) and Trondheim (17x weekly) themselves. It links Stavanger with five destinations, two of them within Norway, and Trondheim with four destinations, two within Norway. The base reopenings mean that a total of 112 pilots and 165 cabin crew will be able to return to work, spokeswoman Eline Skari Hyggen said, and the plan is to increase the number of cabin crew based at Stavanger.<br/>