Your Weekend Travel had the opportunity to fly from London Gatwick Airport to New York John F Kennedy Airport onboard Norse Atlantic Airways in March 2023.
Norse Atlantic Airways is a low-cost transatlantic airline that started in 2021. They are currently trying to establish a foothold in the competitive transatlantic flight market.
In this article, we will go into detail about our experience flying aboard Norse Atlantic Airways investigating key features like the check-in experience, in-flight amenities, and the overall flight performance.
We hope you can use this guide to help you decide on whether to fly on Norse Atlantic Airways on your own adventure.
Getting to London – Gatwick Airport and Checking In with Norse Atlantic Airways
Gatwick Express from London to London – Gatwick Airport
Unlike the more popular London – Heathrow Airport, London Gatwick Airport is located quite a distance away from central London.
It is roughly 27 miles south of London. However, the airport isn’t easily accessible due to the volume of car traffic. This is risky especially when you have a flight to catch.
The distance also makes Uber to the airport very costly.
Luckily, you can take a train from London to Gatwick, which takes 40 to 50 minutes.
We ended up taking the Gatwick Express from London Victoria Station.
We ordered an Uber from our hotel and were dropped off at the station. An elevator brought us to the train platform, where the Gatwick Express was waiting for us.
The train ride was a breeze, it was an early morning train so we essentially had an entire train car to ourselves.
We arrived at London Gatwick Airport at 8:30 am with plenty of time to check in, get through security, and have breakfast before our 12:50 PM flight with Norse Atlantic Airways.
Checking In at Norse Atlantics Airways
Being from the United States where it’s a customary norm to arrive at the airport with ample amount of time to avoid long lines in security or issues with checking in.
We arrived early at the Norse Atlantic Airways check-in desk and notice that no one was working.
We found an employee to ask them if we were in the correct place for check-in and they let us know that our flight was the first flight of the day and that Norse’s check-in process doesn’t start until three hours before the first flight departs.
Essentially, we were forced to wait over an hour online to get checked in.
We weren’t the only people that arrived early. Several people were queueing with us. There was a lot of displeasure amongst the growing crowd.
The check-in agents finally arrived at exactly 9:50 am and began to check people in.
Ironically, we weren’t the first people to be served as the priority access line opened before the regular check-in line.
We watched a family walk to the front of the priority access line, got checked in, and went on with their day.
Nonetheless, when it was our turn to be served, our check-in process besides the inconvenient wait went fairly smoothly.
Something to note is that you cannot check in early the day before online or through their app. You have to check in at the airport, at their check in desk.
This is something that Norse Atlantic Airways needs to address especially when they decide to add more routes and grow in popularity in the future.
Norse Atlantic Airways London to New York Flight Information
The flight from London Gatwick Airport to New York – John F. Kennedy International Airport on board Norse Atlantic Airways is roughly 3500 miles.
Total flight time on average is six hours and twenty minutes.
The flight time largely depends on how strong the headwinds are across the Atlantic Ocean since you are flying against the jetstream.
The route usually brings you across England & Ireland and then a straight dash across the Atlantic Ocean to Newfoundland. Then you follow the Atlantic Coast down until you land in New York.
A Quick Overview of Norse Atlantic Airways Boeing 787-900
The flight from London to New York on Norse Atlantic Airways is performed by the Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner.
This is Boeing’s newest widebody aircraft launched commercially in 2011.
The Dreamliner is super fuel efficient making it one of the most eco-friendly aircraft to fly on today.
The 787-900 can fit close to 350 passengers. The seating configuration on Norse’s 787 Dreamliner was a 3 by 4 by 3 in the economy class. In the premium class, it was a 2 by 3 by 2.
Norse Atlantic Airways Flight Amenities
Norse Atlantic Airways Seats
We had the privilege of selecting our seats near the window in the economy class.
Since it was a row of three seats, we did have to sit next to a stranger.
Overall, the seats on board Norse Atlantic Airways 787 were very comfortable. As a nearly 6-foot-tall individual, there was plenty of legroom space.
An interesting characteristic of the seats was the window shades. You were able to adjust the window shade to various degrees of dark, from pitch black to fully transparent.
So if you wanted to get some sleep, you were able to make the windows opaque so no light can come through.
The In-flight Meal
With your economy class ticket purchase, you get only one complimentary in-flight meal.
Norse Atlantic Airways follows a business model just like Spirit Airlines. Any service to make your flight more comfortable has to come with a purchase since it’s a low-budget transcontinental airline.
The food was good. You had a meat option and a vegetarian option. We opted for the meat option and it was a dish containing chicken and rice. This meal came along with a complimentary soft drink as well. Alcohol had to be purchased separately.
Besides the meal service, you were not served anything else unless you purchased food from the inflight menu.
If you’re prone to get hungry or are traveling with small children, you might want to perhaps buy some snacks to bring with you on the plane.
The In-flight Entertainment
Norse Atlantic Airways’ inflight entertainment system was pretty standard.
It offered information about the airline, television shows, movies, and a flight tracker.
The movie lineup was pretty satisfactory. We watched two movies during the flight, which made it go by very quickly.
The flight tracker for plane enthusiasts left much to be desired.
All you saw was a timeline from the time you took off to the time you landed. There was no GPS map showcasing where the plane was flying over.
The Overall Flight Review
The flight overall wasn’t too shabby.
We took off from London Gatwick without any issues.
They began serving dinner once we leveled out at our cruise altitude right over the Atlantic Ocean.
However, we began to experience significant turbulence which made us question whether they were going to suspend meal service.
They ended up continuing to serve meals but the captain left the seatbelt sign on.
Throughout our journey across the Atlantic, we did encounter pockets of severe turbulence.
However, we felt very safe on board the Boeing 787-900. The captain changed altitude, and reduced speed, but seem to not be able to get out of the bad air at times.
He was very professional about it, and several times came on the intercom to give us an update.
Arrival at New York JFK International Airport
We began our descent right off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Our flight path took us right over the North Fork of Long Island, across to the South Shore, and then up again where we followed the Northern State Parkway into Kennedy Airport.
The landing was pretty solid. We taxied to our gate but couldn’t get off the plane for a length of time.
When we were able to deplane, we made our way to United States Customs which was a disaster due to gross disorganization.
People from England were getting their passports checked at the United States passport-only line.
The overall time for us to get through customs took almost an hour. Welcome back to America.
Final Review and Thoughts
Our experience flying aboard Norse Atlantic Airways from London Gatwick Airport to New York John F Kennedy Airport was a decent one.
Norse Atlantic is a newer airline so there are some kinks they need to work out before they begin to expand.
However, for the price, it was very much worth every penny.
