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* Plan will allow onward bookings on a single ticket
* Allow passengers to fly between Europe, U.S.
* Both carriers could boost traffic and average fares
* Norwegian Air shares jump as much as 10%
(Adds analyst comment)
By Victoria Klesty and Terje Solsvik
OSLO, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Norwegian Air and New
York's JetBlue Airways plan a partnership enabling
passengers flying between Europe and the United States to
continue to multiple destinations under a single booking,
potentially boosting traffic and average fares.
The airlines said in a joint statement on Thursday that if
agreed the partnership would come into effect in the middle of
next year.
Norwegian, Europe's third-largest budget carrier, has shaken
up the market for travel across the Atlantic with cut-price
fares that challenge traditional carriers such as IAG's
British Airways, but its breakneck expansion left it with high
debts and in the red.
The partnership with JetBlue will connect JetBlue flights
from around 100 cities in the Americas to Norwegian's network in
New York, Boston and Fort Lauderdale, from which the carrier
serves more than 20 European destinations.
The deal could help both airlines to boost traffic and the
average fares they earn as transatlantic services are extended
beyond the biggest U.S. cities, Bernstein analyst David Vernon
said.
Norwegian already has a European partnership with London
Gatwick-based easyJet, but until now lacked a U.S.
partner.
While Norwegian and other low-cost long-haul operators have
challenged the big network carriers on their main
intercontinental routes, the incumbents' connecting traffic to
smaller destinations has so far remained largely out of reach.
"If you compete on a purely point-to-point basis, you're in
the most commoditised, lowest-yielding segment of the market
with no subset of passengers to destinations that rivals can't
get to," Bernstein's Vernon said.
"This is an opportunity for Norwegian to capture some extra,
more profitable traffic," he added.
Shares in Norwegian Air, which is cutting costs to try and
return to profit, surged 10% on the news before giving up some
gains to trade up 3.8% by 1248 GMT, outperforming an Oslo
benchmark index up 0.6%.
"Customers will have the possibility to book connecting
flights on both airlines' websites by combining the best of our
complementary and expansive networks," the airlines said.
JetBlue Airways Corp has said that it hopes to break into
the low-fare, transatlantic travel market.
"This new agreement ... seamlessly connects JetBlue's robust
network throughout the U.S., Caribbean and Latin America with
... exciting European destinations," JetBlue Chief Executive
Robin Hayes said in the statement.
(Additional reporting by Laurence Frost in London; Editing by
Mark Potter, Susan Fenton and Alexandra Hudson)
