Last week we wrote about Norwegian leasing HiFly’s A380 to cover some flying for some 787’s from London (LGW) to New York (JFK) and the incredible opportunity to fly in a First Class Suite for as little as $615. The original plan for Norwegian was to randomly assign premium class passengers to seats, leaving you with a 16.67% chance at scoring a suite.
Unfortunately that was too generous and it now appears that Norwegian has decided to add a surcharge to fly in the first class suites cabin. As reported by The Points Guys’s Benji Stawski, Norwegian will now charge up to $400 to guarantee yourself a seat assignment in a suite. All other premium class passengers will still get randomly assigned lie flat business class seats.
The rates for the suite vary based on the country of departure. Upgrade costs are as follows:
- 400 USD
- 2500 NOK (~$303)
- 2500 SEK (~$279)
- 2500 DKK (~$388)
- 300 EUR (~$348)
- 250 GBP (~$322)
Seats are not bookable via Norwegians website and the up charge to the suite can only happen at the counter where you check in. You may want to check in early to ensure a Suite will be available, as there are only 12 total suites. Personally it’s not worth the extra $400 and I doubt that they will manage to sell more than a couple per flight.
You can check out a review of the product on ThePointsGuy.com from the inaugural A380 Norwegian flight. The amenities offered are limited. It is likely that even with a $400 up charge the amenities will remain the same as what Benji received. I wish Norwegian would issue proper bedding and an edible meal for the fee. Than it would be worth while.
As a heads up for anyone still looking to book this deal, the A380 has had some serious problems operating into JFK for Norwegian. For this week, every flight has been delayed from its normal operating time from 11 PM. It does appear that Norwegian has updated its schedule to a new departure time of 3 AM but even with the schedule change most departures have occurred closer to 5 AM. The problem apparently occurred due to a lack of A380 gates at JFK airport and a lack of planning on behalf of Norwegian. If you do get delayed from your scheduled flight be sure to file for EU261 compensation.
The new schedule through August 23 is:
DI7015 London Gatwick to New York JFK departing 8:05PM arriving 12:05AM (+1 day)
DI7016 New York JFK to London Gatwick departing 3:00AM arriving 3:05PM
The A380 is set to operate for Air Austral from Paris (CDG) to the French Island of Reunion (RUN) from August 24 through September 9. It is unknown at this point where the plane is headed to after that. I would love to see it operate for LATAM to IPC but the odds of that happening are slim to none.
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