Ben Mutzabaugh

USA TODAY

Get ready Newburgh, N.Y. Your nonstop flights to Europe are coming – maybe nearly two dozen – with fares that could start at as little as $69 one way.

And Newburgh is not the only smaller, “secondary” Northeastern airport in line for a similar bonanza of European flights. A similar schedule of trans-Atlantic flights are likely on the way for one of three New England airports from a list that includes Portsmouth, N.H., Providence, R.I. and Hartford, Conn.

Those flights will come courtesy of European budget carrier Norwegian Air, which will add Newburgh and one of those three New England airports to its route map next year as it opens two U.S. bases next year to house pilots for its new Boeing 737 MAX jets.

The “MAX” is the newest variant of Boeing’s best-selling 737 narrowbody. They come with new engines and aerodynamic improvements that will allow airlines like Norwegian to fly the jet on routes between North America and western Europe. Norwegian says using the smaller single-aisle 737 MAX for international routes -- instead of a more traditional twin-aisle "widebody" jet -- will allow it to keep costs low and offer fares as low as $69 one way on its service between the USA and Europe.

Norwegian’s decision to open the two new bases at smaller “secondary” airports in the region also means trans-Atlantic service will soon be coming to airports rarely considered for high-profile overseas routes.

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Norwegian has confirmed one of its new bases will be at the Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, located about 70 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.

Thomas Ramdahl, Norwegian’s chief commercial officer, told The Wall Street Journal that Portsmouth, Providence and Hartford were in the running for a second base that would be close to metro Boston.

Norwegian spokesman Anders Lindström confirmed to Today in the Sky that Newburgh will one of the bases, but said the location of a Boston-area base is not yet finalized. “We will make a major announcement in the next few months,” he said in an email to Today in the Sky.

Details of the second location notwithstanding, the moves confirm that nonstop European passenger flights will be coming to at least two secondary airports in the Northeast.

Newburgh’s airport, now run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that also runs New York City’s three primary airports (LaGuardia, JFK and Newark), has long been touted as a potential reliever facility for the New York City metro area. Despite that, its flight schedule has remained relatively modest during the past decade. The airport currently has just five regularly scheduled routes on four airlines: American (flights to Philadelphia), Delta (to Detroit), JetBlue (to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando) and Allegiant (to St. Petersburg, Fla.).

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Providence's T.F. Green Airport has a more robust schedule, though it’s still considerably less than what’s offered 60 miles to the north at New England’s busiest air hub: Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Providence has secured some on-again, off-again routes to Europe in recent years, but landing a Norwegian pilot base – and the new routes it would bring – would be a significant boost for an airport in a region where the vast majority of the international routes operate from Boston.

It’s a similar story at Hartford’s Bradley International Airport, which sits about 110 miles from central Boston and about 125 from Midtown Manhattan. It has a healthy flight schedule for the size of the region it serves, but international flights have been harder to come by. Hartford scored a victory in landing flights to Dublin on Irish carrier Aer Lingus, but that service – which began just this past September – is the first trans-Atlantic route there in eight years.

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Landing Norwegian would be an even bigger deal for New Hampshire’s Portsmouth International Airport. That airport – located about 60 miles north of Boston – has been trying to stake out a niche as secondary airport in the region. However, Portsmouth has failed to secure regular service on any of the biggest U.S. airlines. Small leisure carrier Allegiant is currently the only one flying from Portsmouth, offering four routes to Florida.

Predictably, airports being considered for Norwegian’s new 737 MAX bases are excited about the both the possibility – and the routes that would accompany such a base.

Though Norwegian’s exact flight plans have yet been to be revealed, officials in Newburgh welcomed the news.

“This is for real,” Orange County (N.Y.) Executive Steve Neuhaus says to the local Times Herald-Record newspaper about the development for the airport in his county. “The county has been working with the Port Authority on this for six, nine months – it’s got a lot of moving parts - and we’re very confident we’re finally going to see the ‘international’ in Stewart International Airport.”

Neuhaus tells the newspaper he expects the airline to launch 21 flights a week from Newburgh to destinations in England, Scotland, Ireland and Norway.

Officials at the other airports in the running for Norwegian’s Boston-area base talked up their offerings.

“They have a lot of interest in the Boston market, and then we've got a number of things here in Portsmouth that make us unique,” Andrew Pomeroy, airport operations manager at Portsmouth International, says to WMUR TV of Manchester, N.H. “We've got great highway access. We draw, not just from the Boston market and Portsmouth and the (New Hampshire) Seacoast, but we draw from Maine.”

"We've had numerous negotiations with them," David Mullen, executive director at the airport’s operating authority, adds to The Portsmouth Herald. "They're not yet ready to make a decision but I expect they will in the not too distant future."

If selected, Mullen tells the Herald the airport expects Norwegian would add as many as 18 weekly flights to “several (destinations) in Ireland, several in England, one in Norway and one in Scotland.”

While Norwegian’s base are likely to be a boon for two of the Northeast’s smaller airports, it may mean the region’s bigger airports are now less likely to get new flights on the fast-growing budget carrier.

Norwegian has long talked about adding nonstop service to the U.S. from both Dublin and Cork, service now appears likely to be announced soon after the U.S. Department of Transportation belatedly granted an operating certificate to a subsidiary Norwegian has set up in Ireland.

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Boston had been considered a likely destination for those new Ireland flights, but The Boston Herald says Norwegian now will fly those routes – to be operated with the carrier’s smaller 737 MAXs – to the cities it chooses for its new Northeast pilot bases.

"To operate the Boeing 737s ... from a primary airport becomes much more expensive with a small aircraft type than a larger aircraft type due to limited passenger numbers," Lindström says to the Herald.

"These are the routes that will launch with $69 fares and have average (round-trip) fares of $300 (to) $350, including taxes. In order to operate such flights profitably, they need to be served by medium-sized/smaller airports within the Greater Boston and NYC areas," Lindström explains to the Herald.

But, Lindström tells Today in the Sky that the Ireland routes now make more sense for the smaller airports now that Norwegian has decided to set up 737 bases here. As for its existing presence at bigger airports in the Northeast, Lindström says Norwegian intends to "maintain and continue to expand the routes" it already has scheduled from Boston, New York JFK and Newark (service begins in June 2017) with its larger Boeing 787 widebody jets.

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