Author’s Note: This unedited article was written live during my commute from Madrid to Boston last week. Please forgive any additional attitude or sarcasm. 🙂
It’s 9:45pm in Madrid and 2:45pm in Kansas City. I’m two hours into my Norwegian Air flight back to the United States. Though I downloaded the entire new season of Stranger Things, I’ve already watched two episodes, and we’ve still got five hours to go until landing, so I’m trying to pace myself.
Also, there’s some sort of altercation taking place about two rows in front of me. I’m happy to have an aisle seat/front-row view to this drama.
Okay, anyway, the real point of this post is to talk about the Norwegian Air experience. This is my second time flying with Norwegian, the first time having been when I flew to Madrid at the beginning of September. Norwegian Air is a low-cost airline that has recently emerged on the international stage. I know they weren’t around when I was flying to Europe consistently in the early-mid 2010s, but now I’m not sure I would use anything else. (Well, maybe if I found a lower price, but I’m not sure if that’s plausible.)
The big draw of Norwegian Airline is the price. Rather than offering a standard fare with 50-lb checked bag, meals, and seat choice included, they offer different fare types. The customer is then able to choose the ticket type they need. Many of their fares start in the $100-$200 range. But that gives you the bare minimum. For an extra $100, you get the perks you’re used to on long-haul flights – the bag, the meals, and seat selection.
When I flew to Madrid last fall, I was essentially starting a new life in a new place. I was nervous and overwhelmed, and I needed all my stuff. So I went for that fare, which is called Low Fare+.
This time, for a two-month trip home for the rest of the summer, I decided to be extra cheap. No checked bag. No meal. No seat selection. And I thought this topic would lend itself well to a post.
Okay, enough of the backstory. Here’s everything you need to know about Norwegian Air’s Low Fare ticket.
The first important thing is that you are able to bring a carry-on bag and personal item for no cost. The kicker, though, is the fact that they must weigh under 10kg, or roughly 22lbs. This is strictly enforced. Even when I was coming over to Madrid for the first time, the lady in Boston made me take things out of my carry ons, WEAR THEM, and come back to the desk before she would give me the boarding pass.
This time, I was prepared. My apartment doesn’t have a scale, so I used the food scale to weigh small items and try to decide which items would get bag space and which ones would be… stuffed into my rain jacket!
Low Fare Tip #1: Get creative and wear your luggage.
You can wear or tie as many jackets around your waist as you want. Stuff all the pockets. I put shoes in one pocket, laptop chargers and heavier electronics in the others. You can even put things in the hood. Another thing I did that made a big difference was wearing my DSLR camera around my neck, rather than keeping it in my bag. When you show up at the counter – yes, you have to go to the counter to get your boarding pass, even with no checked bag – the agents don’t really care how ridiculous you look. After they give you that boarding pass, you are free to go and repack your bag as you’d like.
Now, the next issue to address is the lack of onboard meal. In addition to adjusting my sleep schedule for the past few days to better adapt to the time difference, I strategically ordered a pizza for dinner last night. It was strategic because I was supposed to eat the leftovers right before leaving for the airport. It didn’t work because I was so busy that I FORGOT TO EAT IT and didn’t realize until it was almost time to board the plane.
But luckily I’d had a backup plan.
Low Fare Tip #2: Bring snacks!
When I stopped at the grocery store earlier today to buy one last bottle of water – goodbye, 102 degree temperatures with no air conditioning – I realized I should be stocking up. Pringles, mini principe cookies, gummy bears, Kinder Bueno, and chocolate raspberry bites would become my travel companions. I also knew that Norwegian Air does not consider food to be part of your luggage weight, so they won’t weigh it. No need to worry about that. When I was at the desk for check-in, I just discreetly took the plastic bag out of my backpack before putting it on the scale. The guy didn’t even see my food bag. That makes me think that maybe you could hide other bags as well. Just saying.
Before we actually talk about the plane experience, let me tell you about something unbelievably annoying that happened to me.
I was sitting at the gate in Terminal 1? Terminal 2? I don’t know because where you have to check in for Norwegian flights is a 35-minute walk from where the gate was. Yeah, I walked almost two miles in the airport just trying to make it there. I’d been sweating profusely all day and also every day for the past month. I was just thinking to myself that finally I could relax and maybe even not be sweaty.
Then I heard some garbled announcements coming from the gate. I couldn’t hear anything. Sometimes when you go to another country you need your documents double-checked at the boarding gate. So I decided to go and see what was happening.
Guess what?! There was a special surprise on my boarding pass. SSSS! Yeah! I didn’t know what it meant. But it turned out, they had called my name. And all the names of those lucky enough to be marked with an SSSS. “You’ve been selected for a random screening!”
Awesome! A Norwegian gate attendant led me and the other confused passengers on… another walk! Because we hadn’t walked enough, and they knew we’d be sitting on a plane for 7 hours. So sweet.
And he took us to a waiting area. And told us to wait till they called our names. There were already about 15 people waiting. Every few minutes a new batch would come. And the secondary screeners called people literally one at a time. It wasn’t a quick process. It took 3-5 minutes per person. I had been waiting for about 15-20 minutes when I heard the boarding announcements being made for our flight.
So what was this secondary screening? Well, they make you take off your shoes again and basically unpack your bag. Which was a real pain in the ass. I had to get out all my electronics again, and then they wiped that little paper on everything and stuck it in the machine. And more and more people kept being brought for secondary screenings.
30 minutes later, I was finally finished and went to board the plane with most of the other stragglers. Yet somehow they were still calling people to go get additional screening. So who knows if those people made it. If not, RIP.
(If you can’t tell, I have a lot of feelings about airport security but that wasn’t supposed to be the point of this post.)
Okay, so I made it on the plane. Finally. I was randomly #blessed with an aisle seat, as I mentioned. The altercation has been resolved by now, in case you were wondering. It was just a woman yelling at a flight attendant and being super aggressive because I guess she’d asked for water five whole minutes ago but hadn’t gotten it yet? And when he said it was a mistake, she accused him of doing it on purpose? And then when he came back with it she was crying and he had to comfort her? It’s like the wild west up here.
Speaking of water. If you’re a poor unfortunate soul like me who didn’t buy the expensive stuff, you’re not destined for famine. There are screens on the back of the seats – yay! technology! – and it has a section where you can order food and drinks. I’m not buying anything but I’ve seen other people swiping through it, and the prices actually look reasonable. You pick what you want and then I’m pretty sure you can just swipe your card right there at your seat. $3 for a can of beer really isn’t too bad.
“Mood lighting” for landing
What else… the screens have movies and TV, and also a USB port for charging! And maps you can look at, with information about destinations, for people who love maps like I do. One of the coolest things about Norwegian is their windows. Right now they’re all tinted like purple. There are no shades, just a button you push. I only know this from the first time I came over here. I’m far from a window now. Oh, let’s see. The seat layout is 3-3-3. So I’m on an aisle seat of the middle section. Also, they just turned out all the lights in the cabin which is a little annoying because it’s still the afternoon in our destination and shouldn’t people be trying to adjust? It’s making me sleepy. This isn’t specific to buying the cheapie fare. But still. Information about Norwegian.
I guess that’s probably all these is to know. I’m a few hours into it, and so far, it doesn’t seem too bad. All my stuff is here with me in the cabin so there’s no risk of losing it. When we land, I’m just gonna hop off the plane and hope it’s quick to get through customs.
Have you ever flown with Norwegian Air? How was your experience? Let me know in the comments!
-Cathy
Originally Published on July 29, 2019.
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