The flight network between North America and Iceland remains excellent despite the recent collapse of Icelandic low-cost carrier WOW air. Five legacy airlines offer year-round flights between Keflavík International Airport (near Reykjavik) and the US&Canada: Air Canada, Icelandair, Delta Airlines, American Airlines, and United Airlines.
Delta, United Airlines, and Icelandair all operate flights between Keflavík and New York; American Airlines offers scheduled flights to Dallas; and Delta and Icelandair fly to Minneapolis. In addition, Icelandair’s summer schedule includes destinations such as Anchorage, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. From Montreal and Toronto in Canada passengers can fly direct to Iceland with either Air Canada or Icelandair. The latter also has flights from Vancouver and Montreal.
Global air traffic increased massively during the last couple of years, in part due to low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, Norwegian, EasyJet and WOW air pushing ticket prices down, but also because of falling fuel costs. During this time, Iceland became one of the fastest growing transatlantic markets. Although the outlook might seem little bleak at the moment, given WOW air’s collapse and the sharp rise in airfare that followed, the truth is that Iceland remains extremely well connected to the US. Whatmore, the country could even become a little more affordable for the average tourist as WOW air’s bankruptcy could impact Iceland’s GDP and weaken the Icelandic Króna by as much as 13%.
