Icelandair expanding U.S. network with more capacity, flights

Icelandair has decided to provide enhanced connectivity between North America and Europe with increased seat capacity. Icelandair’s national carrier recently announced it will be it will be enhancing its seat capacity by 11.3 percent in 2017.

The Icelandic carrier will be expanding its network in the United States with the addition of two new destinations – Tampa and Philadelphia – from its Reykjavik hub. With the new services, the North American routes will be significantly increased taking the total number of routes to 18.

Media reports said that Icelandair will be launching its flights to Philadelphia from Reykjavik starting from May 30, 2017. The airline will initially operate the route as a seasonal summer-only service. The flights would be operated until September 20, 2017. If the route however proves to be successful then the airline would consider converting it to a year-round service.

According to the reports, Icelandair will also be launching new flights from Reykjavik to Tampa effective from September 7, 2017. This route will be served with twice weekly flights. The new Tampa-Reykjavik route will be complementing the existing Orlando-Reykjavik route being operated by the airline with five-times per week service. Both Tampa-Reykjavik and Orlando-Reykjavik routes would be operated as year-round service from September 2018 when the airline will start offering daily flights between Florida and Iceland.

Icelandair is presently serving 26 European destinations, which includes flve airports in UK such as Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport (both in London), Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham. Icelandiar’s subsidiary Air Iceland is also presently operating flights between Aberdeen and Reykjavik.

Þhorsteinn Gudjonsson, Icelandair’s General Manager – Western Europe, said, “The company is constantly making efforts to add more routes to Europe even though the continent is already well connected. The airline is looking at growth of 11.5 percent in terms of seat capacity. This is being done mostly by increasing frequencies. New destinations only account for nearly 1 or 2 percent of this growth.”