OREANDA-NEWS. Two new direct routes by the airline Norwegian from Copenhagen to Los Angeles and New York are expected to benefit the Danish economy by attracting an additional 33,000 American tourists per year and generating an additional DKK 61 million in revenues.

New flight routes are Denmark’s gateway to growth. Today’s announcement by Norwegian that it will launch direct air services from Copenhagen to Los Angeles and New York JFK is great news for Denmark: the two new routes have come about in a close collaboration between Norwegian, Copenhagen Airport and the route development programme Copenhagen Connected.

“According to our estimates, Norwegian’s new routes to Los Angeles and New York will attract some 33,000 additional inbound tourists from the United States and thereby generate additional tourism revenues in Denmark of DKK 61 million per year. This shows how important it is to support the development of routes to and from Denmark,” said Lars Bernhard Jorgensen, CEO of Wonderful Copenhagen, which houses Copenhagen Connected.

Traffic flows going to and from the United States

The subsidies for the routes will be used for destination marketing to promote Denmark and Copenhagen as travel destinations in New York and Los Angeles. And with load factors of 96%, Norwegian’s first long-haul services to the United States and Asia are very successful, so there is a great potential for attracting more tourists to Denmark, according to Norwegian’s CEO Bjorn Kjos:

“The routes have been well received, not only by our Scandinavian passengers travelling to the United States and Asia, but also by Asians and Americans travelling to Scandinavia and onward to other destinations,” said Kjos.

It is no coincidence that Norwegian has decided to fly its new Boeing 787 Dreamliners to as many as three destinations in the United States, Kjos emphasises.

“The greatest traffic flows today are between Europe and the United States, and there is strong demand for a quality product at competitive, low fares between the two continents,” Kjos added.

Routes strengthen Copenhagen Airport’s hub position

Copenhagen Airport CEO Thomas Woldbye believes that Copenhagen’s position as the key northern European hub has clearly been strengthened by Norwegian’s decision to launch as many as three direct long-haul services from Copenhagen: to Fort Lauderdale from November this year, to New York from February next year and to Los Angeles from March.

Analyses made by Copenhagen Airport show that more than 160,000 passengers travelled from Copenhagen via other airports to Los Angeles and New York JFK last year. Next year, they will be able to fly non-stop to those destinations.

“Los Angeles and New York JFK are in fact the two largest unserved destinations out of Copenhagen, and they are consequently also the routes with the greatest earnings potential. So Norwegian has made a good choice,” said Thomas Woldbye.