David Casey is Senior Network Planning Editor at Routes, providing insight on network strategy and development across the Aviation Week Network. This includes the daily Routes Digest, Routes magazine and the Routes Aviation Podcast. Norwegian Air Shuttle CEO Jacob Schram confirmed in January what many analysts had expected for some time: the LCC was axing long-haul flying to focus on key destinations in Europe. The announcement marked a sad—but ultimately necessary—end to what had been an ambitious strategy to shake up the lucrative transatlantic market. In the years since the airline operated its first flight to New York (JFK) in May 2013, Norwegian had grown to serve more than 70 routes between Europe and North America, operating almost 6 million two-way transatlantic seats in 2019.