Norse Atlantic Launches Marathon Los Angeles To Athens Flights

Ultra low cost carrier Norse Atlantic Airways is launching a pretty cool new transatlantic route, as flagged by @IshrionA.

Norse Atlantic adds first California to Greece flight

Greece is of course a super hot summer destination for Americans, and we’ve seen US airlines greatly increase flights between the two countries in recent years. However, up until now, there have been no nonstop flights between the West Coast and Greece. That will be changing.

For the summer of 2025, Norse Atlantic will operate a 4x weekly service between Los Angeles (LAX) and Athens (ATH). The flight will operate between June 3 and September 29, 2025, with an alternating schedule.

On Tuesdays and Fridays, the flight will operate with the following schedule in both directions:

N0512 Los Angeles to Athens departing 2:30PM arriving 1:10PM (+1 day)
N0511 Athens to Los Angeles departing 9:00AM arriving 12:30PM

On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the flight will operate with the following schedule in both directions:

N0512 Los Angeles to Athens departing 8:40PM arriving 7:20PM (+1 day)
N0511 Athens to Los Angeles departing 3:10PM arriving 6:40PM

The 6,928-mile flight is blocked at 12hr40min eastbound and 13hr30min westbound, making it Norse Atlantic’s longest scheduled flight. Norse Atlantic is basing a jet in Athens for this service, given the schedule. This complements Norse Atlantic’s other route to Greece, out of New York (JFK).

Norse Atlantic operates a fleet of Boeing 787-9s, featuring premium economy and economy. Fares are super reasonable, as you’d expect, and start at $236 one-way in economy, and $475 one-way in premium economy.

Why is there no other service of this kind?

Some people might be surprised that there’s not another nonstop flight between the California (or even the entire West Coast) and Greece, given that there’s significant demand. Why does no other airline fly from Los Angeles to Athens? Why doesn’t United fly from San Francisco to Athens?

I think there are several factors at play here:

• California to Athens is about as long as a US to Europe flight can get, so the operating costs are super high, especially on the “big three” US carriers, given their labor contracts
• While premium leisure demand is driving a lot of growth nowadays, Greece is super hot, but not quite as high yield as Italy, for example, which is more popular with older, more affluent travelers
• Los Angeles is an airport where all of the “big three” US carriers really struggle to add long haul service that’s not to a joint venture hub, given how competitive it is with foreign carriers
• For people traveling to Greece beyond Athens (like to Mykonos), a nonstop flight from California to Athens isn’t necessarily more convenient than a flight from California to a European hub (like to London), and then to Mykonos
• United is the only airline that has a real mega-hub in California, so competitively, the airline doesn’t have to fly nonstop, since it’s not like other full service carriers are going to compete; it’s more efficient for airlines to just route passengers through their hubs that are further east

So I’m not surprised to see Norse Atlantic trying to launch this route, and it’s no doubt nice to see an ultra low cost carrier serving a market that otherwise doesn’t have flights. At the same time, will the airline be able to command yields that justify this very long flight? I don’t think we’ll see any sort of a competitive response.

Bottom line

Norse Atlantic is launching a creative transatlantic route, which isn’t operated by any US carrier. For the summer of 2025, the airline will fly nonstop from Los Angeles to Athens, which is the only nonstop flight from the US West Coast to Greece.

I’m sure this flight will prove popular, though it remains to be seen if it makes any money, given that we’re talking about a journey of nearly 7,000 miles.

What do you make of Norse Atlantic launching Los Angeles to Athens flights?