Norwegian Air Shuttle isn’t a well-known name in Australia, but they are expanding rapidly across Europe and the US and now have flights to and from Singapore. So how do they stack up?
Derek’s note: Norwegian withdrew from the Singapore-London route in 2019, and as of 2022 no longer operates the Boeing 787, restructuring its fleet to operate solely within Europe.
Norwegian Air UK flight 7408
Singapore Changi (SIN) – London Gatwick (LGW)
Aircraft: Boeing 787-9 “Dreamliner”
The Deal: Singapore to London, one way in economy class, for SGD$199.90 (a quick search shows it seems to hover around SGD$289, but cheaper fares may exist on certain dates if you are flexible). That gets you a seat with a screen, and hand luggage allowance of 10 kilos (1 bag plus a personal item), but nothing else.
The LowFare+ bundle is an additional SGD$90 on top of your fare, but includes meals (two meals on this flight plus a snack), seat selection and a 20kg checked bag allowance. Given a checked bag alone is GBP£40 (A$71.30) to add at the airport, and adding seat selection or the meal option later are GBP£25 (A$44.56) each, if you think you’ll need any of these options the bundle makes sense. (I’ll get to the meals later but there is a very good reason to include those in your booking, especially ex-Singapore.)
As usual, there’s also a credit card surcharge you can’t easily avoid; in my case it was SGD$32.90, but that was for the whole booking including the return leg. So my one-way fare came to SGD$289.90, plus the credit card charge.
(The Singapore dollar is almost equal with the Australian dollar at the time of writing.)
The Schedules: Flights from Singapore to London take about 14 hours; Norwegian’s flights depart Singapore at about 9am and arrive at about 4pm local time at Gatwick. Flights operate 4 days per week- Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The return leg isn’t quite so convenient, leaving London at 10am and arriving in Singapore at 7:30 the following morning, meaning you have a fair few hours to kill before hotel check-in becomes available. These flights are on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
The Airport: Norwegian operates out of Changi’s Terminal 1, which has lots of shopping options once you clear immigration. There are limited food options at 7am, though, given the flight leaves at 9; essentially your choices before the checkpoint are coffee or KFC (which at least has a breakfast menu in Singapore). There are more options after the immigration checkpoint, with a food court inside the transit area.
If you are early enough you can transfer to other terminals to take advantage of their options; however note that you’ll need to allow enough time to return to T1 to catch your plane.
Lounge Access: Norwegian doesn’t appear to operate its own lounges but passengers in their Premium cabins get lounge access at selected airports. Unfortunately Singapore is not one of them, but you can access a contracted lounge at Gatwick on the return trip.
Frequent Flyer: Norwegian Reward is basically a cash-back scheme; you get 2% of your fare in Cashpoints, which you can redeem for flights and individual services (such as meal reservations). Higher fare types earn higher percentages, with flexible fares earning back up to 20%. Norwegian doesn’t have any other airline partners, though.
There are no status levels but taking a set number of flights earns you Rewards such as upgrades and lounge access.
The Aircraft: A Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, G-CKOG Paco De Lucia, in operation since January 2018 (so barely five months old at the time I flew). Norwegian’s livery features different “tail fin heroes” on each aircraft, honouring pioneers in different fields; originally restricted to people with some Scandinavian heritage, the list has since expanded.
(Paco De Lucia was a Spanish flamenco guitarist. Other heroes featured by Norwegian include explorers like Roald Amundsen, aviation pioneers such as Freddie Laker, and entertainers such as Victor Borge, Sonja Henie and Freddie Mercury.)
The Seats: compared to Jetstar and their configuration on the 787, Norwegian’s setup is pretty roomy. In addition to a 31-inch seat pitch (so more legroom than Jetstar), there are also only 9 seats per row compared to Jetstar’s 10. Admittedly Jetstar aren’t operating 14-hour flights on their aircraft and Norwegian are, but the difference is noticeable and appreciated.
There’s no leg rest or remote control for the entertainment system (it has a touchscreen), but the headrests do adjust. I didn’t test the recline as there were people behind me (I tend to feel bad about reclining back into people, even on long haul).
Window seats have the Dreamliner’s LCD windows; rather than just having the window shade open or closed, you can adjust the amount of natural light that comes through using the button below the window. This makes a big difference if you want to try and sleep, as the flight to Gatwick is entirely in daylight.
Entertainment: Each seat has its own screen (Premium seats have theirs mounted on an arm, while in Economy the screens are in the back of the seat), a 10-inch touchscreen that is sharp and responsive. Unlike other low-cost carriers, Norwegian doesn’t charge for its in-flight entertainment; instead it just runs ads before each program for the snack bar service.
The library has a wide variety but a limited selection, if that makes any sense. In addition to new releases the back catalogue includes movies as old as Singin’ In The Rain and Rebel Without A Cause, while there are Looney Tunes cartoons and the obligatory few episodes of Young Sheldon. However, there are only two episodes of Young Sheldon (the pilot, and one other out of order), only a handful of cartoons, and the New Releases section only has a total of ten films (including the hilariously Bowdlerised version of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri I reviewed here.)
Updated: on the return flight I checked out an older movie with which I was very familiar, namely Die Hard; it appeared to be entirely unedited.
You can buy headphones on board, or bring your own to use as the screens have a standard headphone mini jack. Norwegian’s short-haul services (on Boeing 737 aircraft) have onboard wi-fi and bring-your-own-screen streaming instead of in-seat screens, however there is no wi-fi on their 787 fleet.
Food and Drink: The meal package I mentioned earlier included two hot meals with drinks, as well as a snack midway through the flight. During each meal service a choice of two meals was offered; generally a chicken or fish option, one with pasta and one with rice. The snack was a chicken sandwich on wholemeal bread.
Meals were a bit smaller than one would be used to on other airlines, but still came with a small side salad and a dessert (normally fruit and jelly). That said, the meals were quite tasty; in particular I enjoyed the chicken curry, which actually had a bit of spice to it in defiance of the old bland-airline-food stereotype.
If you pre-purchase the meal package you can book vegetarian or halal options for no additional fee.
In addition, the snack bar function on the entertainment system allows you to order chips, nuts, chocolate and drinks for an additional charge by swiping your credit card. A packet of chips and a 330mL can of soft drink was SGD$6. Hot meals are also on sale but these had already run out about halfway through the flight.
One thing to note about flights departing from Singapore; the security checkpoint is at each gate rather than immediately after Immigration. You can buy food at Changi to bring on board your flight, but drinks are not allowed due to the security limits on liquids. So you can take an empty bottle in and refill it from the water cooler, but there is no way to buy, say, a Coke and take it on board. (Duty-free purchases like liquor are allowed providing they stay in the sealed plastic bag from the store.)
Punctuality: I generally don’t worry about punctuality on 14-hour flights, but then I didn’t need to make a connecting flight in London. My flight left Singapore about 26 minutes late, but arrived 14 minutes ahead of schedule; we could have been even earlier but had to take a longer route around some bad weather. The 4pm arrival at Gatwick also seemed to be a fairly quiet time so customs and immigration procedures were quite quick. (Getting a train into London was another story entirely.)
The Bottom Line: If you pay for the meal package there is not a huge difference between long haul on Norwegian and the same flight on a full-service airline. It’s not any more or less comfortable, the meal service is fine, and the only noticeable differences are the fare and the pretty limited entertainment options.
The issue for us Aussies is whether to book with Norwegian when other options exist- especially considering we have to get to Singapore first to take advantage of the fare, and you will probably need to factor in an overnight stay if you don’t want to nap on the airport seats. If you don’t need to be in Singapore then you can fly Sydney-London for around AUD$1100 with a bit of preparation; I got an email just today from Qatar Airways advertising AUD$1160 fares on that route, via Doha.
There are rumours that Norwegian is looking to fly Buenos Aires to Singapore via Perth; this would provide connections to flights to London (in both Singapore and Argentina), and put Norwegian in competition with a number of other airlines running Perth-Singapore, including Singapore Airlines’ discount carrier Scoot. Whether it could compete with other options to Europe, like Qantas’ non-stop Dreamliner service, remains to be seen.
If you are already in Singapore then a sub-SGD$600 Europe fare makes more sense if you can get it. Even at SGD$800 with the meal and baggage bundle the price is still competitive, and based on my economy experience I would certainly have no issue with Norwegian as an option.
All prices were correct at the time of publication. Fares were purchased from the airline’s website; the airline was not notified that I would be writing a review and did not provide consideration.
At the time of writing $1 AUD = £0.56 GBP = $1.01 SGD.
