Flying in or out of JFK will always be one of those unpleasant experiences you just have to get over – like ripping off a bandage, which only lasts a second.
Trying to get out of one of the so-called funniest airports in the developed world, on the other hand, takes hours.
The prospect of spending a Saturday night battling this unfortunate reality was almost enough to prompt me to fly Norse Atlantic Airways from NYC to London-Gatwick at the end of August.
Leaving the dreaded Terminal 7, which once at least pretended to be somewhat civilized, before British Airways upped sticks, Norse is one of a group of lost child airlines looking for a suitable home, which with apparently they will get it at some point, as this place is a bulldozer.
Right now, T7 rivals Terminal 1 (also about to hit the ground running) as the NYC-area departure point most likely to convince you that commuting is bad and you should never leave your house again, and I am including Newark in this ranking.
But the ticket cost less than $500 and bought me a seat in the most affordable premium cabin flying across the Atlantic right now. How bad could it be – at least once I got on board?
Known only as Premium, Norse’s service is a bit different from competing business class and Premium Economy products available on the market, incorporating a bit of both in what looked online like a very nice cabin, domestic style business class. Very comfortable for a quick trip to Europe.
It’s also usually much less than what you’d pay for the equivalent elsewhere—even after you’ve paid an extra fee of about $60 to reserve an aisle seat. (My rolling suitcase, about 30 pounds, was included in the fare.)
I was about to learn that there is a reason why everything is so cheap.
Norwegian, of course
Before there was Norse, there was Norwegian Airlines, which still exists but stopped long-haul flights during the pandemic.
A group of cash-strapped investors was able to raise the money to acquire the no-longer-needed fleet of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, and a few years later, they’re still here, which probably surprises even some of the people who work there. – at $302 one way for a higher class of service (this is a real fare on multiple dates in October, you can look it up), how are they making a cent from me?
Arriving at Terminal 7 at 11.45pm, well past most people’s sleeping hours, the scene in the ticket hall, all the snakes, line of frustrated passengers waiting, waiting, waiting, was something out of a movie – a disaster movie.
Even for John F. Kennedy International, things were surprisingly chaotic, with Norwegian flights to Rome, Paris and London all yet to depart. All cracked, it seemed, to hold hundreds of people who weren’t going anywhere fast for now.
None of whom, I’ll add, were able to sign up online beforehand because Norse doesn’t offer that service – not on their website, not in an app. (They don’t even have an app.)
Feeling like the rudest New Yorker I’ve ever been, I elbowed my way to the front of the wrong line, irritating a bunch of Paris-bound travelers, to ask the only employee I could see who wasn’t trying to dampen the frenzy in someone else’s rise where the Premium check-in for Gatwick could be.
Their elegant solution – cut the line. Avoiding eye contact, I did just that, in and out in a second and through security, leaving the now unruly crowd behind. There’s no separate lane for Premium customers, but I didn’t need to – congestion at the check-in desks meant no waiting to run the TSA gauntlet this evening.
Not that there was anything to rush about in the terminal, of course – despite flights being scheduled until 1:30am, most restaurants and shops seemed intent on closing by midnight.
And forget any lounge access – if there was any offer, I wasn’t told about it, and I’m just wildly guessing here, but even those closing hours were probably even before our flight.
The only thing to do – spray myself with test column from the duty-free shop, find the quietest corner of the terminal, sit in a broken chair among the uncollected garbage, wait and remind myself that I’m getting too old for these kinds of adventures.
Let’s get out of here
Well in the wee hours, called boarding.
I’m not sure if the Premium passengers were invited first – I almost fell asleep the whole time – but I was finally released from the terminal and I was almost elated.
Things got even better as you turned left instead of right when you boarded the plane – the best feeling – only to find an almost empty front cabin.
Of the 56 plush-looking seats arranged in a 2-3-2 arrangement, there couldn’t have been more than a dozen passengers and I was one of the last to board, welcomed by a well-dressed and well-behaved crew. good. nice employees, who all looked very young.
Not that I needed the extra space to be comfortable. My leather aisle seat already had 43 inches of legroom — well above the standard 38 inches in competing Premium Economy cabins, much more like a Business product.
The seats are also wider than you might expect—19 inches, which is more than you get in Premium on some of the higher-end, usually much more expensive, airlines.
There’s also a generous amount of stretch, at 12 inches, which only becomes an issue when the person across from you wants to be really comfortable.
That didn’t happen to me, because after takeoff, which happened as quickly as it could at JFK, where interminable tarmac delays are the norm, I was able to move to a window seat with no one in front or behind me.
After being served (very politely) a comically late dinner of chicken and vegetables—surprisingly good, even if I was more in the mood for breakfast at 2:30 a.m.—I pulled the flip-up video screen up, put on “The Fugitive” of 1993 and fell asleep.
And that was pretty much it – I woke up less than two hours before landing, had a half-decent airline coffee and a yogurt, walking out into the sunshine and into Gatwick’s South Terminal as if my flight hadn’t happened. . Easy and memorable – when it comes to flights, what more could you ask for?
decision
Getting on board and to the point of relaxation may have been an ordeal, but it was just over, resting comfortably in the quiet, extremely airy cabin, watching Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford do their cat and mouse game. we weren’t even done flying over Canada and I already got more than I paid for compared to other carriers flying the same route.
In the future, I would know not to expect any ground support, and I’m sure a loyalty program will never happen, barring the possibility of Norse returning to my favorite country, but when I need comfort on a budget and need it now, Good to know there is an airline that can do this and apparently still make a buck or two.
GOING
Service from New York, Miami, Orlando, Las Vegas and Los Angeles to multiple European gateways including London-Gatwick, Paris, Rome, Athens, Berlin and Oslo. Routes vary by season. Reserve at flynorse.com.
#flew #cheapest #business #class #NYC #Europe #expecting #disaster #good #happened
Image Source : nypost.com