No food, no water, no blankets – welcome to Norwegian Air Shuttle

Norwegian Air Shuttle, Europe’s third-largest budget airline, has apologised for refusing passengers food, water and even blankets on its recently launched long-haul flights to New York and Bangkok.

A 16-year-old spent his Oslo to New York flight freezing since he only had cash and no credit card with him to pay the $5 fee charged by the carrier for renting a blanket, the daily newspaper Aftenposten wrote.

To je uslijedilo nakon izvještaja prošle sedmice o norveškim članovima posade koji su Tajlanđanki vratili šalicu kave nakon što se ispostavilo da kod sebe ima samo gotovinu i lokalnu kreditnu karticu. Žena takođe nije mogla kupiti hranu ili vodu tokom 12-satnog leta.

“This is totally unacceptable. Norwegian must ensure its passengers are treated well and we pologise deeply,” company spokesman Lasse Sandaker-Nielsen said.

“We are the first to admit that we have had some start-up problems on the long-haul flights,” he said.

Only a handful of budget airlines operate long-haul routes and passengers are sometimes surprised to find out that they have to pay for services other carriers offer free of charge.

Norwegian is going to review its policy of only accepting credit card payments and will improve its communication with customers, Sandaker-Nielsen said.

The two episodes quickly drew the ire of social media users.

“Unbelievable that people have the courage to fly Norwegian. Not being able to drink water can lead to death,” said Thor Olsen on Twitter, while Tor Andre Ljosland speculated that “soon you will also need a credit card to use the toilet.”

Norwegian expects to take delivery of its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner at the end of this month, almost two months behind schedule following problems with the planes’ batteries.

The company has leased two Airbus A340s from Portugal’s HiFly to avoid delaying the launch of its New York and Bangkok flights.