Norwegian takes root in Barcelona

Norwegian's boss, Bjørn Kjos, with some of Norwegian's Barcelona-based crew 

Can you think of any better location to host an airline's offices than a former airport control tower?

Norwegian's new office: Barcelona's old control tower (this airport function was moved to a new building when most of Barcelona's traffic moved to the new T1 terminal 

Norwegian's now commands, quite literally,  a privileged position at Barcelona airport.

The inauguration of its new offices at Barcelona's airport former control tower, attended by the company's CEO, Bjørn Kjos, is a strong statement about the Nordic carrier's designs for its Barcelona base.

This year 2015 Norwegian will continue its entrenchment into Vueling's territory, by basing a fourth Boeing 737-800 aircraft in Barcelona and opening new routes to Birmingham, Dubrovnik, Billund, Stavanger and Trondheim. With this move, Norwegian will up the number of routes its serves from Barcelona to 15, about 158 weekly flights, which represent a  capacity of nearly 30,000 seats per week.

Ambitious plans for Barcelona...in the making

But the most interesting development might be yet to come, as in 2016, Norwegian aims to start long-haul flights from Barcelona with its new Dreamliners. This would be a major qualitative step for the Catalan airport, that in spite of having seen a very comprenhensive short and medium-haul network and having seen a significant increase in the number of long-haul flights in recent years, it still lacks a locally-based long-haul operator.