Travel tips & suggestions

[cintrix]

A $69 flight to Europe may be in your future

Published: Oct 7, 2015 3:03 p.m. ET






By
Catey
Hill
Reporter

It may soon cost you less to fly to Europe than to take your spouse out to dinner.

On Tuesday, Bjørn Kjos, the chief executive of Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA — a budget European carrier — said that, as early as 2017, he hopes to sell one-way tickets from certain cities in the U.S. to Europe starting at just $69. Average prices for roundtrip fares would be around $300, Kjos said.

To do this, the airline would fly from American airports that have relatively low fees, like Westchester County Airport in New York and Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn., Kjos said. Flights would land in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Bergen, Norway.

For consumers, this could be a big win — at least from a financial perspective — as, currently, the average price for a roundtrip ticket from New York to Edinburgh is more than $700 and from New York to Bergen more than $500, according to data from flight research firm Hopper.com.

Norwegian isn’t the only airline hoping to lure consumers with low-priced transatlantic flights. This month, the Icelandic budget airline WOW Air is offering $99 flights from Boston to Paris and Amsterdam, and last year it offered $99 flights from Boston to Reykjavik.

But buyer beware: There are typically catches to ultra-low-cost deals. Return flights may cost more, and you likely won’t get any bells and whistles (like extra legroom).
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-69-flight-to-europe-may-be-in-your-future-2015-10-07?dist=lcountdown