Gate Gourmet has reached a long-term agreement with Norwegian Air Shuttle AS to provide onboard catering and provisioning across the airline’s system. Gate Gourmet has provided “buy-on-board” food, beverage and duty free sales for Scandinavia’s largest low-fare airline since the carrier’s startup in September 2002. The agreement is the second contract renewal with Norwegian from its Oslo hub and expands airline catering services to include Stockholm and Norwegian’s recently acquired subsidiary FlyNordic (to be rebranded Norwegian from April 5).

“We are delighted to continue our long collaboration with Norwegian and proud that it recognizes our strong focus on performance and quality,” said Philippe Op de Beeck, Senior Vice President of gategroup and President of Gate Gourmet’s Central Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

Bjorn Erik Barman-Jenssen, Norwegian’s Director of Station and In-flight Services, said: “We are impressed with Gate Gourmet’s commitment to further develop Norwegian’s in-flight concept in terms of quality and innovation to match our continuous growth going forward.”

Since its start with four domestic routes and six Boeing 737s, Norwegian has grown rapidly. Today it flies 27 B-737s under the Norwegian livery and eight MD80s as FlyNordic. The company offers more than 140 routes to 78 destinations within Europe. Additionally, Norwegian operates to North Africa and Turkey and will add Dubai in October.

Gate Gourmet will continue to operate a buy-on-board airline catering concept and duty free sales for Norwegian in Norway, Sweden and Poland, and provision complimentary meals for charter flights. In addition, pre-ordering services of both meals and duty-free items will be introduced under the new agreement.