Budget carrier Norse Atlantic adds 3rd city from Berlin with new US route

Residents of Germany's capital have a new way to get to the beaches and sun of South Florida.

Norse Atlantic Airways, the new long-haul, ultra-low-cost carrier, announced its third route out of the city's new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER): a flight to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL).

The route, which will operate three days a week, begins on Dec. 7. Tickets start at 228 euros ($231) one-way.

The flight departs Berlin at 4:25 p.m. on Wednesday, Friday and Sundays and arrives in Fort Lauderdale at 9 p.m., all times local. The return flight departs Fort Lauderdale at 11 p.m. and arrives in Berlin at 2:40 p.m. the next afternoon.

"With the addition of our Fort Lauderdale route commencing in December we will be the largest long haul carrier operating out of Berlin," Norse CEO Bjorn Tore Larsen said in a statement. "Our affordable fares will boost transatlantic travel between Europe and the US benefitting local economies on both sides of the Atlantic."

Fort Lauderdale is Norse's third route from BER. Service to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) began yesterday, while service to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) begins tomorrow. The route is Norse's second to FLL, which also has service to the airline's home base of Oslo Airport-Gardermoen (OSL).

The new route seems more targeted to those based in Germany looking for a sunny escape than to those based in Florida. German flag carrier Lufthansa has 50% of the market share in the U.S.-Germany market, according to Cirium schedule data.

First look: Norse Atlantic Airways' inaugural flight from New York on the Boeing 787

Most traffic between the two countries uses one of Lufthansa's two hubs, Frankfurt Airport (FRA) or Munich Airport (MUC). Air service in Berlin has historically been more limited, a result of the city's divided history after World War II, when air service flourished elsewhere. Now, however, the recent consolidation of Berlin's airports into a single facility could enable more transatlantic service.

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Norse operates a fleet of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners inherited from its indirect predecessor, Norwegian Air's long-haul division. Those cabins feature a 2-3-2 premium configuration and a 3-3-3 economy configuration. All seats feature a personal TV screen with a limited but adequate selection of content. Wi-Fi is not yet available, though a Norse executive told TPG in June that the carrier plans to eventually offer the service.

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(Photo by Ethan Klapper/The Points Guy)

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Separately this week, Norse's U.S.-based flight attendants officially became unionized. The National Mediation Board recognized the flight attendants, a bargaining unit of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, through a card check process, with no election required. That's a result of Norse management promising to voluntarily recognize an AFA-CWA bargaining unit when the airline first started up.

"Our agreement will immediately set a new standard in aviation—both in the terms of the content and how it was reached," AFA-CWA president Sara Nelson said in a statement. 'Norse Flight Attendants will have the highest starting pay in the industry, strong work rules, and the knowledge that management worked to reach that agreement as a partner, not an opponent."