OSLO: Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle is promising to boost traffic at smaller airports on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean when it starts service to Europe this summer from Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.
Norwegian Air announced that it’s opening new flight crew bases and plans to hire pilots and flight attendants at Rhode Island’s T.F. Green Airport and Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York, about 60 miles north of New York City. Year-round flights from those airports to Edinburgh, Scotland, begin in June and to four airports in Ireland and Northern Ireland in July.
There also will be flights to Edinburgh from Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport, near Hartford. Officials who represent the three Northeast airports and their counterparts in Ireland celebrated the move as a boon for family vacationers, business travelers, and local jobs and tourism.
“Everyone would rather fly out of here than schlep to Boston,” said Rhode Island Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo, speaking during a news conference at the airport in Warwick, just south of Providence and about an hour’s drive from Logan Airport in Boston.
Norwegian Air’s move creates the first year-round international flights for the Rhode Island airport after years of expanding runways, building hotels and making a commuter-train connection.
“People thought we were a little far-reaching, and finally all the pieces are starting to come together,” said Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, a Republican.
