This is definitely true although in Norwegian's case they also benefited from some lucky timing: the GFC happened to occur just as Boeing were developing new ai

This is definitely true although in Norwegian's case they also benefited from some lucky timing: the GFC happened to occur just as Boeing were developing new aircraft that would finally be capable of offering low enough ops costs for the LCC model to work on longer sector times. I doubt too that Norwegian foresaw how long oil prices would remain low when they made the order. Norwegian are where they are today thanks to: execution, vision, luck and balls. Just like all the other hyper successful businesses of the world (Amazon, Ryanair, Southwest, Netflix etc. etc.).