Well, Norwegian applied for AGP/BCN/ALC/GOT/AAR in this years ACL allocation as well as the historic slots for ARN/OSL/SVG. Obviously ALC/BCN/AGP came to fruition, and they were the routes I had doubts about, so hopefully, the GOT/AAR should come through.
It's quite pleasing that these routes have come through, as it now means we have a full 7 day service from Norwegian, and now the joint second biggest destination outside LGW based on number of routes served, coming from the last place position. It also means that like Gatwick and Edinburgh, we now have both DY and D8 coded flights. EDI still larger will be larger with 21 weekly flights compared to MAN's 15.
It will now be interesting to see if any long haul comes to the fore. It has been mentioned by Bjorn Klos that the B737-max could be used from MAN. Thomas cook have laid the ground work and proven the low cost long haul can work from MAN. Obviously I hope that no long haul from Norwegian pushes TCX off the routes as they have been good to MAN and set up a pretty impressive trans-Atlantic offering from Manchester, but I do think that Boston, Washington, San Fransisco and Los Angeles could use more capacity, and Fort Lauderdale, San Juan, Bangkok and Delhi could be great routes. Boston would be the prime route we are likely to see first if it ever happens, and with TCX only offering may-sept flights, I fully believe Norwegian and Thomas Cook could co-exist on the route.
MAN has its wish list of long haul, now they have got Norwegian to expand, they could be used to open the routes TCX isn't quite brave enough to try. There's always the fact that the Norwegian brand is more well known in the USA too.
