Norwegian Air to end routes from Sweden, Denmark to U.S, Thailand

OSLO (Reuters) – Budget airline Norwegian Air (OL:) is ending flights from Copenhagen and Stockholm to the United States and Thailand due to weak demand and technical problems affecting the engines on its Boeing (N:) 787 Dreamliners, it said on Wednesday.

Flights between Oslo and the U.S. will continue, it added.

“Scandinavia isn’t big enough to maintain intercontinental flights from Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen,” Senior Vice President Commercial Matthew Wood said in a statement.

Norwegian has shaken up the market for transatlantic travel with low fares to challenge traditional carriers such as IAG’s (L:) British Airways, but rapid expansion left it with high debts.

To stem its losses, the company has cut unprofitable routes and said last month it will reduce capacity by 10% next year, the first time in its near two-decade history Norwegian has planned to shrink.

Britain’s Rolls-Royce (L:) said in September it would take longer than expected to fix problems with its Trent 1000 engine, which were caused by poor durability of turbine blade components.

“We have for a time been struggling with the Rolls-Royce engines on our long-distance aircraft, which means we need to keep more planes on the ground. This affects our route schedule,” Norwegian’s Wood said.

Norwegian said it will increase the frequency with which it flies from several European cities to U.S. destinations, although it did not provide specific plans.

On Nov. 12 the company announced non-stop routes from Chicago to Rome and Paris, and between Denver and Rome.

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