Nowegian Air or Air Berlin?
 

Has anyone flown Norwegian Air or Air Berlin on a transatlantic flight?

Observations? Recommendations? Any quirky requirements?

Thank you in advance.

Note that the cheapest Norwegian Air prices do not include fees for luggage, booking fees, etc. It might equalize the pricing if Norwegian appears cheaper. According to the airline, taking the next higher fee (+$89) will cover most of the expected services (booking, one free suitcase, meal).

Thank you Michael

We are hopeful that there will be air sales after Jan 1.

Take a very GOOD look at the seating on both. You can use seatguru.com and sometimes you can see interiors using youtube.com.

I suspect any AB transatlantic flight is going to be routed through Dusseldorf but not certain. Norwegian, probably through Oslo but do check the routings if having to change anywhere is an issue for you.

I have flown Air Berlin from New York to Dusseldorf a few years ago. It was fine. I don't recall any problems (other than having to go to Dusseldorf - but actually the connection to where I DID want to go wasn't bad at all).

I have flown Norwegian from Norway to Poland a couple years ago, it also was fine. And I have just booked a flight for this coming summer from Boston to London for $294. (One way, the return a month later is $550). I did add $42 for a seat assignment and priority boarding. With that good a price it would have to be pretty terrible to not be worth the price. They did cancel the flight on the day I wanted after I booked it, and put me on the following day, so that was annoying but it will still work for me and I have found other airlines have made changes when you book so many months in advance.

Thank you. Yes AB goes through Dusseldorf and Norwegian, for this flight, goes through Copenhagen.

This past fall we got very inexpensive fares on United, EWR to Berlin. We had been looking at Air Berlin ORD to BErlin but the United flight won easily on price.
We had two infra-Europe dlights on Air Berlin which were fine.

We are watching the prices vigilantly and have signed up for a couple of alerts.

Norwegian is notorious for flight delays for unknown reasons.. it can really reduce your vacation time if you are stuck in NY waiting for the fight to arrive. Friends took Norwegian to London and the flight was delayed for hours . they finally left around 3am and lost at least a half day in London.. haven't heard the same about air berlin..

Thanks for the information.

I flew Vienna to JFK on Air Berlin this September. AirBerlin has a crazy scheme where one can pay extra for an aisle seat; bid to have an empty adjacent seat in Economy; and bid for a Business Class seat. On the outbound I successfully bid for a Business Class seat at a much reduced cost. Unfortunately, on my day of travel I lost the seat because the previous day’s flight had been canceled and those travelers with “higher” status bumped me back to cattle-class, where I at least had an aisle seat. Rather disappointing. On the return I “won” an empty adjacent seat in the two-seat Economy section for a mere extra €100, and could at least stretch out and sleep a little.

AirBerlin service was fine; if anything, the menu offerings were better than I expected (at least on the outbound). The main outbound meal was “chicken or pasta” with some sauce; the snack before landing was a curried (?) cole slaw with chicken strips. Personally, I would never serve an in-flight meal containing turmeric, where the likelihood of a splash and resulting permanent stain is high. I did like that the flight attendants distributed bottles of water to everyone, though. The inbound food is not worth discussing.

Thanks again.