A new role operating trans-Atlantic routes that were previously the preserve of some of the world’s biggest planes would now be conducted by the smallest aircraft made by Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE.

A 15 percent fuel saving meant to cut costs on the shortest inter-city services is offered by the re-engined 737 Max and A320neo jets. And just enough fly range to allow the narrow-bodies to span the 3,000 miles between the eastern U.S. and Western Europe would be added by the revamp which has added about 500 miles to their range at the same time.

Airlines say the smaller jets will open up direct routes that wouldn’t otherwise be viable even though eight hours on a 130-foot plane with three toilets and one gangway might not immediately appeal to travelers used to the spacious cabins of an Airbus A380. The need to switch between flights at a busy hub would thereby be eliminated. And as carriers seek out smaller airports where access charges are lower, people can look forward to competitive fares.

While NAS is set to lead the way when it becomes one of the first carriers to get Boeing’s Max 8 next year, among airlines buying the jets for trans-Atlantic routes are Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, JetBlue Airways Corp. and Portugal’s TAP. Edinburgh, Birmingham in England and Cork and Shannon in Ireland could be linked to smaller airports in New England and the New York area by NAS’s initial flights.

“The Max is very competitive. It has huge potential from the smaller cities along the Atlantic coast. But you can’t go into New York as you do with wide-bodies. You must target airports with a totally different cost structure,” Norwegian Air Chief Executive Officer Bjorn Kjos said in an interview in London.

With companies including United Continental Holdings Inc. still deploying the Boeing’s 757 model on routes such as Newark, New Jersey, to Birmingham, England, the the world’s longest single-aisle airliner with around 200 seats and a range in excess of 4,000 miles, has been plying the Atlantic for years.

But those 757s still flying in the twilight of their lives were left with fuel consumption way in excess of modern jets as the production ceased in 2004.

With the original 737-100 seating just 85 people and limited to trips of about 1,200 miles, the 737 and A320, by contrast, were designed for much shorter flights.

With SAS AB serving Boston from Copenhagen using an 86-seat 737-700 and British Airways connecting London City airport and New York with an Airbus A318 carrying just 32 passengers, a handful of carriers operate services at reduced capacity, which cuts the weight of a plane and increases its range.

Linking St. John’s, Newfoundland, with Dublin — distance 2,000 miles — and Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Glasgow in Scotland, they are the only current trans-Atlantic 737 or A320 services with a near-normal load and are flown by Canada’s WestJet Airlines Ltd. The 737-700s used have 136 seats.

The U.K. and Irish routes planned for Norwegian’s 189-seat Max 8s will span about 3,000 miles. Spokesman Lasse Sandaker-Nielsen said that though they’ll likely involve a long-range version of Airbus’s A321neo known as the LR and able to fly more than 4,000 miles using extra fuel tanks, , subsequent flights could serve Stavanger, Trondheim and Bergen in Norway and Aalborg in Denmark. Norwegian ordered 30 of the planes with 220 seats in a single class in July.

(Adapted from Bloomberg)