Norwegian Air has put a hold on its Hamilton-to-Dublin service while it scrambles to find a replacement jet for the grounded Boeing 737 Max airliner that was supposed to handle the route.

The company is not saying how many, but clearly thousands of passengers have paid for flights starting March 31 without certainty of a plane to fly on.

All over the world, Boeing 737 Max passenger liners remain out of service because of safety concerns in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash outside Addis Ababa on March 10 that killed all 157 aboard.

Norwegian, a low-cost carrier, had scheduled every-other-day departures and returns between Hamilton and Dublin from March 31 to Sept. 15, with daily flights both ways for the remainder of September and October.

Norwegian's website lists the March 31-to-April 29 flights as being sold out and has suddenly jacked up its one-way fares to about $1,200 for routes that are listed as still having seats. That's more than four times the $279 one-way fares (including taxes) that were advertised when the airline first announced the service in June 2018.

"The route is temporarily suspended because they are trying to reconfigure their whole fleet network plan," says Dina Carlucci, the director of marketing and communications for John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport.

"They are meeting to look at all their summer programs that have been impacted by the suspension because the suspension could last longer than any of us want it to," she said. "They are looking at options for us in terms of other aircraft types. However, that is based on other aircraft being available."

Norwegian Air spokesperson Anders Lindstrom issued a short emailed statement and did not return phone calls from The Spectator.

"Considering this is an extraordinary situation, we ask for some patience while we work to restore the few affected routes," he wrote in the email.

"We have temporarily closed a number of fare-booking classes during the temporary grounding of our Boeing 737 Max fleet while we work on a long-term solution. Once resolved, lower-fare classes will open up again, but right now our focus is ensuring we can take care of those customers who have already booked tickets with us."

The airport says it doesn't know how many people have bought tickets, and Lindstrom wouldn't say.

But clearly there would be many thousands. The 737 Max planes have approximately 200 seats. The Norwegian website lists 36 sold out flights, which would mean 7,200 passengers. And that's not counting the unknown numbers of people who have partially filled the nearly 250 scheduled flights from May until October.

McMaster University business professor Marvin Ryder says the 737 Max was a key part of Norwegian's strategy to find business opportunities using routes between North America and Europe.

"They were going to run these Max planes because they were more energy efficient. And because their costs were going to be lower they could pass savings onto their passengers," he said.

Airline industry expert Fred Lazar of York University said the Max planes can fly farther distances than regular 737s, and use 20 per cent less fuel.

The planes are ideally suited to smaller markets like Hamilton because the planes have only 200 seats to fill rather than 250 to 450 that wide-bodied jets have, he said.

He believes the planes will be out of service for months because the investigation will need to figure out why pilots apparently did not receive appropriate training. Earlier this week, Air Canada announced it was removing its 737 Max planes from service until at least July 1.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

"I'm sure Norwegian will be suing Boeing, joining a large number of other airlines. It doesn't help the consumers who have booked vacations, but eventually it will all be corrected," said Lazar.

mmcneil@thespec.com

905-526-4687 | @Markatthespec