Irish low-cost carrier (LCC) Ryanair and LCC Norwegian plan to start joint feeder flights from summer 2017 onward.
“We are ready to cooperate with Norwegian right now,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary told ATW on the sidelines of the Airlines for Europe (A4E) summit in Brussels. “We are finalizing technical implementation as Ryanair and Norwegian operate on two different reservation systems,” he said, adding, “It is better to work with them instead of compete with them [Norwegian].”
Norwegian CEO Bjorn Kjos told ATW, “Ryanair has 2,000 routes in Europe; we have 500. They are flying to a lot of destinations where we don’t.”  He added that low-fare passengers will not only fly from A to B, but also to C (to an ongoing third destination, for example).
Both carriers are A4E members.
O’Leary said there will be no pro-rata agreements or revenue-sharing on these joint flights.
Kjos said Norwegian is still young in the long-haul business. “We operate 12 Boeing 787s; in three years we will have more than 40 787s,” Kjos said.
Norwegian operates the 787-8 and the larger 787-9 version. Kjos said he is not interested in operating the 787-10, “because it does not have the range Norwegian needs; we need to fly them on longer routes, like to Asia.”
Asked why Ryanair recently axed plans to launch long-haul flights, O’Leary said, “We will not do this [launch Ryanair long-haul flights] in the next five years because we simply can’t identify widebody aircraft [that fits the carrier],” he said.