With the announcement of the new BCN to SCL and JFK, LEVEL has also announced that they are not resuming BCN-LAX next summer. Consequently LEVEL will leave LAX.

https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/bus ... 5_102.html

Los Ángeles y Santo Domingo, paradas

Por contra, no recuperará Level los vuelos directos de bajo coste a Los Ángeles (Estados Unidos) y a Punta Cana (Santo Domingo), que han sido eliminados de la operativa en los quince meses que lleva la aerolínea en el mercado. Vincent Hodder, director general de la operadora, ha indicado hoy desde Barcelona que estos enlaces se recuperarán "cuanto tengamos aviones suficientes". En otras palabras, Level ha sacrificado las conexiones para optar por otras rutas más rentables.

Iberia will continue linking MAD-LAX year-round. Additionally Norwegian serves (also year-round) LAX from both BCN and MAD.

According to DOT data, BCN LAX has had load factors over 90%. Fares must be REALLY low.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Not surprising. Not long ago I flew Los Angeles to Barcelona on Norwegian and the flight wasn't full, plenty of empty space. I guess Level has those same low load factors, even more due to the fact that on average Norwegian is just a bit cheaper than Level so more people will pick Norwegian.

It's obvious two competing LCCs on this route is too much, one had to pull out. That turned out to be Level. This will improve load factors on Norwegian given that they now own this route.

BCN-LAX is one of the Barcelona's long haul routes with the highest load factor... https://twitter.com/Aeropuerto_BCN/stat ... 9300815872

The article states that they're dropping BCN-LAX and BCN-PUJ until they have more aircraft available. So it sounds like a return may be in the cards in the future. However, the fact that they'd rather enter BCN-JFK (a market that already has up to 4 daily flights between JFK and EWR) over keeping BCN-LAX indicates that they haven't seen the results they hoped for.

jasoncrh wrote:

According to DOT data, BCN LAX has had load factors over 90%. Fares must be REALLY low.

It is low cost central. What do you expect?

I recall in the Icelandair WOW thread, someone mentioned he flew BCN-KEF-LAX for 290 USD mid-August.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

jasoncrh wrote:

According to DOT data, BCN LAX has had load factors over 90%. Fares must be REALLY low.

They were, why else would I return from Los Angeles through Barcelona? It's one of the cheapest entry points into Europe and has plenty of onwards connections. For me Barcelona wasn't my final destination after Los Angeles, I had a self-transfer there to Transavia taking me to Eindhoven. A 5 hour layover, but that was fine. It was still the cheapest option. Destinations like Barcelona rely heavily on connections.

It's one of Europe's most-visited cities. It might have worked for you but I assure you most people are not using it for a clever offline connection.

Fares were day after day 150€ ... for a flight of nearly 11h.... they must have been burning money crazily.

BOS and now JFK are in the range of the 7-8h flight. Fares will be more or less the same, the possibilities of attracting some more yielding pax are there too, and then revenue per pax and per km is better. SFO with LEVEL will compete against OAK in Norwegian, and all the rest seems to be more routes with no direct competition, with prices which are not exactly low-cost (EZE, and now SCL). EZE was mentioned as the route which was indeed better performing among all the LEVEL operation in BCN.

a350lover wrote:

Fares were day after day 150€ ... for a flight of nearly 11h.... they must have been burning money crazily.

BOS and now JFK are in the range of the 7-8h flight. Fares will be more or less the same, the possibilities of attracting some more yielding pax are there too, and then revenue per pax and per km is better. SFO with LEVEL will compete against OAK in Norwegian, and all the rest seems to be more routes with no direct competition, with prices which are not exactly low-cost (EZE, and now SCL). EZE was mentioned as the route which was indeed better performing among all the LEVEL operation in BCN.

While LEVEL's and Norwegian's pricing to EZE is very, very competitive with say, BA, AR or IB, it is still nowhere near the €99 per segment you see over the North Atlantic. That is why LEVEL is pulling its planes from LAX and sending them to SCL. The South Atlantic is only now beginning to see more affordable fares.

SCQ83 wrote:

jasoncrh wrote:

According to DOT data, BCN LAX has had load factors over 90%. Fares must be REALLY low.

It is low cost central. What do you expect?

I recall in the Icelandair WOW thread, someone mentioned he flew BCN-KEF-LAX for 290 USD mid-August.

That was me! Fares between LA and Spain were insanely low this summer. My mid-August nonstop LAX-MAD flight on Norwegian was something like $325. All of this unsustainable airline service made for an excellent 30th birthday present, that's for sure. I daresay it turned out to be cheaper to fly all the way to Spain than Chicago or New York City!

cedarjet wrote:

It's one of Europe's most-visited cities. It might have worked for you but I assure you most people are not using it for a clever offline connection.

I know that poster has his "thing" with Norwegian making LGW a hub but I think he might have some reason in this.

For instance, LEVEL was all over the place in Spanish media when they announced the new brand. Way more than Norwegian, but after all IAG/Iberia is probably a much better client for those newspapers/TV stations. That probably attracted quite a few people from outside the region that just arrived there by train, coach or a Ryanair/Vueling.

Also California from Southern Europe has been historically not well linked. So those new low-cost options are not only a cheap option but sometimes the first non-stop option.

So I can think that LEVEL/Norwegian in those new routes to California has generated a "Ryanair effect" attracting people that otherwise would not fly from BCN. People who wanted to visit California but didn't want / couldn't fork 1000 EUR one-stop flights in August and now they see a non-stop option for 300 EUR round trip and jumped on it. It also helps that BCN has an unlimited amount of low-cost options to anywhere in Spain / Europe, and this summer (with tourism falling in Catalonia) those fares were also particularly cheap (probably like that BCN-EIN).

Tourism is falling in Spain as well..... Tourism felt a bit in Catalonia but expending increased about 7%...