Norse Atlantic Airways Offers Dirt-Cheap Tickets. There’s a Catch
Norse Atlantic Airways Offers Dirt-Cheap Tickets. There’s a Catch
挪威大西洋航空提供超低价机票，但背后有隐情
On March 31, I received an email from Norse Atlantic Airways. The $940 flights for my upcoming round trip to Rome had been canceled, it said, and I had 14 days to request a refund. 3月31日，我收到了一封来自挪威大西洋航空（Norse Atlantic Airways）的邮件。邮件称，我即将前往罗马的往返机票（价值940美元）已被取消，我有14天的时间申请退款。
At first, I didn’t panic. That began to change when the company’s refund request page wouldn’t load on two browsers across three devices. After Norse didn’t respond to several emails, I looked for a phone number. There wasn’t one. On Reddit, I found dozens of posts about Norse’s allegedly haphazard customer service. 起初，我并没有惊慌。但当我在三台设备上的两个浏览器中都无法加载该公司的退款申请页面时，情况开始改变。在挪威大西洋航空对我的几封邮件置之不理后，我开始寻找客服电话，却发现根本没有。在Reddit上，我找到了几十篇关于该公司客服极其混乱的帖子。
The same day, I filed a public records request with the Federal Trade Commission, which I hoped would give me a better idea of how common this experience was. I eventually received around 75 detailed complaints from people who had bought or tried to buy tickets from the airline. Many described a customer service operation in which the inability to get in touch with a human created a vacuum that scammers appeared happy to step into. Of the 41 complaints that reported a dollar figure, 21 claimed they lost more than $1,000. 当天，我向美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）提交了一份公共记录请求，希望能借此了解这种经历的普遍程度。最终，我收到了约75份详细投诉，均来自购买或试图购买该航空公司机票的乘客。许多人描述称，由于无法联系到人工客服，导致服务出现真空，而骗子们似乎很乐意趁虚而入。在41份提及具体金额的投诉中，有21人声称损失超过1000美元。
Norse Atlantic Airways does have human customer service workers, but in recent years, the airline has leaned into a tech-forward approach, deploying AI agents to help power its operation. 挪威大西洋航空确实拥有人工客服，但近年来，该航空公司倾向于采用技术驱动的策略，部署人工智能代理来协助运营。
“Technology will help us have a higher level of availability and customer support, while still maintaining low fares for more people to enjoy travel between continents,” Bård Nordhagen, the company’s chief customer and communications officer, tells WIRED. “技术将帮助我们实现更高水平的服务可用性和客户支持，同时保持低廉的票价，让更多人能够享受跨洲旅行，”该公司首席客户与通讯官Bård Nordhagen告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志。
Yet if what I and dozens of other people experienced is any indication, this version of customer service is time-consuming, frustrating, and at times expensive. 然而，如果我和其他几十人的经历能说明什么的话，那就是这种客服模式既耗时、令人沮丧，有时甚至代价高昂。
The Future Is Now
未来已来
Norse Atlantic Airways, which was formed in February 2021, has described itself as a “modern, long-haul, low-cost airline” with a “lean” workforce. Early on, it implemented a tool from the customer service technology company Sprinklr that created a “unified” inbox of customer service queries. (Based on archives of the company’s website, it doesn’t appear to have ever listed a customer service number.) 挪威大西洋航空成立于2021年2月，自称为一家拥有“精简”员工队伍的“现代化、长途、低成本航空公司”。早期，它采用了客户服务技术公司Sprinklr的一款工具，创建了一个“统一”的客服查询收件箱。（根据该公司网站的存档记录，它似乎从未列出过客服电话。）
In January 2025, the AI company Kindly wrote a blog post detailing how it developed a chatbot for Norse alternatingly called “Odin” or “Odin’s Wingman.” Norse also removed the customer support email from its support page in order to make Odin the “primary support channel,” according to the Kindly blog post. 2025年1月，人工智能公司Kindly发布了一篇博客文章，详细介绍了他们如何为挪威大西洋航空开发了一款名为“Odin”或“Odin’s Wingman”的聊天机器人。据Kindly的博客称，挪威大西洋航空还从其支持页面上删除了客服邮箱，旨在将Odin作为“主要支持渠道”。
By January 2026, Norse had “sunset” the chatbot and replaced it with its current AI agent, Freya. Delight.ai, the company that developed Freya, said that the airline’s no-human-intervention inquiry resolution rate “rose from 60 percent to 80 percent” within two weeks of its introduction. 到2026年1月，挪威大西洋航空已将该聊天机器人“下线”，并替换为现有的AI代理Freya。开发Freya的公司Delight.ai表示，在引入该代理后的两周内，该航空公司的“无需人工干预”查询解决率从60%上升到了80%。
“We see the future of our customer support team as AI agent managers,” Norse’s chief product officer, Alf Lim, said in a Delight.ai blog post. Lim added that Freya is a “core part of the team” at Norse. “我们将客户支持团队的未来视为AI代理经理，”挪威大西洋航空首席产品官Alf Lim在Delight.ai的一篇博客中说道。Lim补充说，Freya是挪威大西洋航空团队的“核心成员”。
According to the blog, Freya would allow Norse to “upskill” its customer support unit into these AI agent managers, which are described as “specialists who continuously optimize, train and step in when human-touch is required.” 根据该博客，Freya将使挪威大西洋航空能够将其客户支持部门“升级”为这些AI代理经理，他们被描述为“能够持续优化、训练并在需要人工干预时介入的专家”。
Nordhagen tells WIRED that Freya has been a success and now manages “99 percent of inquiries from passengers.” Nordhagen告诉《连线》，Freya非常成功，目前处理了“99%的乘客咨询”。
A Scammer’s Paradise
骗子的天堂
Many of the FTC complaints shared a common theme: A person, needing to change their flight or adjust their booking, searched online for the Norse Atlantic Airways phone number. Eighteen of the FTC complaints explicitly claimed that the person was scammed after they Googled Norse’s customer service information and found scam websites and phone numbers in the results. 许多FTC投诉都有一个共同点：当乘客需要更改航班或调整预订时，他们会在网上搜索挪威大西洋航空的电话号码。其中18份投诉明确指出，他们在谷歌搜索该航空公司的客服信息时，因搜到了诈骗网站和电话号码而上当受骗。
In some cases, customers claimed they were told they owed money for a flight they thought they already paid for. Other times, they said they were told that they had to pay an exorbitant fee in order to make a change to their itinerary. 在某些情况下，客户声称他们被告知需要为已经支付过的航班补交费用。另一些时候，他们被告知必须支付高昂的费用才能更改行程。
They passed along their credit card information, and in some cases, their social security numbers. Soon after, they said, huge charges appeared on their credit card statements. 他们交出了信用卡信息，在某些情况下甚至提供了社会安全号码。他们表示，不久之后，信用卡账单上就出现了巨额扣款。
In one complaint filed in March 2025, a person described trying to buy tickets over the phone. They said they disclosed information for “3 different credit cards” because the man on the other end of the line claimed that their payments weren’t going through. “Stupidly gave him my date of birth and last 4 of my [social security number],” the person wrote. 在2025年3月提交的一份投诉中，一名乘客描述了自己尝试通过电话购买机票的经历。他们说自己提供了“3张不同信用卡”的信息，因为电话那头的男子声称支付未成功。“我愚蠢地给了他我的出生日期和[社会安全号码]的后四位，”该乘客写道。
By the time they realized they had been scammed and canceled their credit cards, there was an unidentifiable charge for $1,258.88. “We are 72 and 79 years old [we] are scared,” the customer said. “Please help.” 当他们意识到被骗并注销信用卡时，账单上已经出现了一笔无法识别的1258.88美元扣款。“我们分别是72岁和79岁，我们很害怕，”该客户说，“请帮帮我们。”
This problem has apparently become so widespread that Norse’s official website includes a giant warning about “online scam and fraud.” 这个问题显然已经变得非常普遍，以至于挪威大西洋航空的官网上出现了一个关于“在线诈骗和欺诈”的巨大警告。
At the time of writing, a Google search for the “Norse Atlantic airways phone number” returned links to three Yelp pages, which listed two different phone numbers. Both of these appear to be scams. 在撰写本文时，谷歌搜索“挪威大西洋航空电话号码”返回了三个Yelp页面的链接，其中列出了两个不同的电话号码。这两个号码看起来都是诈骗电话。
When WIRED called the first number, a man claimed to be a representative of Star Alliance, a network of 26 airlines. However, Star Alliance’s website doesn’t list Norse Atlantic Airways among its affiliated airlines, and it doesn’t include the phone number. (A representative for Star Alliance confirmed that the number isn’t associated with the company, and said Norse isn’t one of its members.) 当《连线》拨打第一个号码时，一名男子声称自己是星空联盟（Star Alliance，由26家航空公司组成的网络）的代表。然而，星空联盟的网站并未将挪威大西洋航空列为其成员航空公司，也没有包含该电话号码。（星空联盟的一位代表证实该号码与该公司无关，并表示挪威大西洋航空不是其成员。）
When WIRED called the second number, a different man said he was a representative of “Flight Travel Portal,” a service that does not appear to exist. 当《连线》拨打第二个号码时，另一名男子声称自己是“Flight Travel Portal”的代表，而这项服务似乎并不存在。
When WIRED asked the man about online posts that claimed his phone number was a scam, he sounded unfazed. People online can say anything, he offered. 当《连线》询问该男子关于网上称其电话号码是诈骗的帖子时，他表现得毫不在意，并称网上的人什么都敢说。
A few complaints noted that the person had emailed customer service at their credit card company or a travel website they used to book a flight, only to be referred back to Norse or told there was nothing the company could do. 一些投诉指出，乘客曾向信用卡公司或预订机票的旅游网站发送邮件寻求帮助，结果却被推回给挪威大西洋航空，或者被告知公司对此无能为力。
In August 2024, a person in New York wrote that they purchased a $397 flight from Paris to New York using Priceline, including cancellation insurance. 2024年8月，纽约的一位乘客写道，他们通过Priceline购买了一张价值397美元的巴黎至纽约机票，其中包含了取消保险。