Norwegian
Boeing 737-8JP
LN-NGX
Flight date: 12 September 2017
Operating as DY1876 from OSL to MXP
Footage with highlights from the flight can be seen in the link below with a detailed description.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsFvPNS2UOg&t=670sNorwegian is the 3rd largest low-cost carrier in Europe, and the largest airline in Scandinavia as of June 2017. It operates an extensive network throughout Europe, North America and Asia.
On a rather rainy day in Oslo, I had the pleasure to check-in for my flight to Milan Malpensa. Norwegian now checks in all their flights in the newly opened Terminal 2 at OSL, which carries much of the same design features as the old one. However, with the opening of the new terminal, OSL no longer seems too crowed. The check-in was hassle free, and over in 2 minutes. I used the check-in machines and the self bag-drop, which is very easy to use. Unless you've never flown before of course.
The security check point in located right behind the bag-drops, and overall is very efficient. All in all I was inside in less than 10 minutes from arriving at the train station, which is located right in between the two terminals.
I proceeded over to gate D3, which is located at the new pier. The new pier is very spacious, and the design is quite modern. The new additions at OSL have made it a much better airport, imo. Boarding soon began, and it was orderly performed. Boarding was pre-recorded in Norwegian, English and Italian. Nice to hear that Italian was included for a flight to Italy. I have not heard this before. The downturn with the boarding process was that they demanded all passengers seated behind row 15 to board at the rear, which was quite annoying considering the heavy rain. While a lot of the passengers followed these orders, myself included, many other did not. This made for complete chaos in the cabin, where everyone wanted to pass each other.
Push-back soon began, and the safety video was played. The Captain announced a flight time of 2 hours and 30 minutes, and that it would be a calm flight down to Italy once we were in the air. We taxied for runway 19L, and took off into the clouds. That's when the baby a few rows behind me started crying, and oh boy was she crying. She finally calmed down after about 30 minutes.
The cabin was very clean, the seat was comfortable, but the leg-room was quite awful. I can't imagine flying with this kind of leg-room to the Canary Islands, or worse, to the US. Hopefully the new MAX will have somewhat better leg-room. The cabin was the new style interior, and the mood light was a very nice feature. Norwegian is a strictly BoB airline, so everything extra is charged. The menu provided by the flight attendants is actually quite nice, and daily extensive. The magazine is also a nice read. I like to compare the new route maps with the older ones. This airline has really grown a lot since they started. It also has a nice little section with all the tail fin heroes featured on Norwegian planes, including some of my favorites like Sonja Henie, Henrik Ibsen, etc.
Overall this was a very calm flight, and not much happened inflight. Most of Europe was rather cloudy, except some parts of Denmark. The clouds finally started to disappear over Switzerland, which gave some fairly good views of Zürich and the Alps. When the approach finally started, the clouds had disappeared completely. This gave us some great views of the greater Milan area.
The approach to Milan was daily bumpy, and the pilots had to break hard on landing. We landed at runway 35R, as it seems 35L is closed for renovations. We taxied quite fast to the terminal. Not too much airline action for me too see because I was seated at the "wrong side" of the aisle at Malpensa. The flight attendants turned on some hit music during the taxiing. I don't know about you guys, but I prefer it without music, or at least some soothing music.
Disembarking was fairly efficient, and so was baggage claim and customs. I was fairly impressed by MXP at this journey, my first time ever at the airport.
Overall, Norwegian is a good airline, and as a low-cost carrier I can definately recommend them on intra-European flights.