Icelandair

✅ Trip Verified | Newark to Keflavik. Myself and my wife flew for a week vacation in Iceland. As first time visitors to Iceland and to Icelandair I have a few comments. Our flight and luggage handling were smooth. The only gripe I have is the staff in Newark and Keflavik airports. They seem unnecessarily rude and not friendly. We fly quite a bit and this is the first time we have seen such behavior from a non US airline. Also the hotels that are part of the Icelandair vacation packages are substandard. Although some of them are international chains and some owned by Icelandair themselves they all need some improvement. Otherwise the time spent was fabulous.

✅ Trip Verified | Keflavik to Washington. Icelandair is supposed to be a “flagship airline” of Iceland. However, they operate like a low-cost budget airline. The cabin is very uncomfortable, and the check-in staffs at Keflavik airport are very incompetent and rude. And of course, since this is a cheap “budget” airline, there are many hidden fees. I demanded an explanation for an additional fee to a check-in staff at Keflavik Airport, but due to his incompetence, he failed to provide an answer. Stay away from this airline.

✅ Trip Verified | We bought a Vancouver to Brussels (via Reykjavik) ticket in December 2017 planning a bike trip, we were checking 2 bicycle boxes and 2 backpacks expecting to pay the usual flat fees for it. No other special warning of any sort. Icelandair since March 2018 considers that a flight ticket with a 90' connection in Reykjavik is like a 2 legs trip. So all the fees need to be paid twice! 2 fees / bike (2x300$) and 2 for the first luggage (2x125$). Total 425$/person, Cad$ 850! For a couple attempting to fly Icelandair with a return ticket, they can expect to pay for 2 luggage another Cad$ 500, a family of 4 will pay $1000 on top of their flight tickets if they carry only one baggage each! Glad we bought only 2 one way tickets. I had a “convivial” conversation with the agent at the checkin arguing that tickets have been bought in December and we should not be impacted by that new rule Implemented in March 2018. Also, in my knowledge no other airline charge twice the fees when you have a flight connection (stopover) with the same airline company. The counter agent "x" ( who refused to give us her name or to call for a manager! Rather to send us to the website to fill up a complaint form) stayed professional but confirms a lot of passengers are surprised and unhappy. Icelandair is working hard promoting intercontinental flights, all flights include a stopover. This a very poor commercial way to make business.

✅ Trip Verified | Icelandair is a budget airline and unless everything goes completely smoothly (which doesn’t always happen), you’re definitely going to notice the budget part. The check in process was fine although they insisted I check in my carry on bag as the flight was very booked and there was limited cabin space. I agreed although upon them losing my luggage, I was not too happy I did. Plus it would have been nice to have brought/taken back more things had I known my bag was going to be checked anyways! I’m still waiting to see if they’ll let me be over the weight limit of a carry on since I had to buy clothes in Europe due to them losing my luggage roller. Hard to say though as my return flight has been changed to United, I fly an hour earlier as planned, and my flight is hours longer in duration now. Plus, I still am allowed no checked baggage, yet. It took us 2-3 loop-dee-do’s before we landed in Iceland for my transfer. I had a short transfer so I knew I was cutting it close. Fortunately they pushed the transfer back for those of us continuing onto Munich but the process took forever. There was apparently an in-flight emergency on board which made us sit on the tarmac for an agonizing long time, particularly when you know you have to make a transfer. The “emergency” involved a couple walking off the airplane on their will, rather nonchalantly for an emergency. You’re going to save a ton of money potentially with this airline but do not be surprised if your travels are full of frustration and unpredictability.

✅ Trip Verified | Denver to London via Keflavik. I bought a ticket from Denver to London flying via Icelandair for myself and my best friend, unfortunately on the day of departure, Denver airport was suffering delays across the board due to high winds. So when my connecting flight was delayed for three hours, I got to the airport with scarcely an hour before my Icelandair departure time. But luckily my friend and I managed to check in and run to the assigned gate ten minutes before departure. But instead of finding someone waiting for the two passengers that were sweating with effort to make that flight, the doors had been closed early and the gate had been abandoned. I tried everything in my power to get the attention of any gate attendant to receive assistance but I was turned away by every individual. It wasn’t until the plane was backing out of the gate (five minutes prior to the scheduled departure time) that two women representing Icelandair appeared from the gate door. I can’t say why one of them couldn’t have stayed at the gate desk to offer help to people in need but regardless, they flat out refused to help me when I asked about our flight, and told me to call Iceland directly before they walked away. I called Icelandair, waited an hour to get a hold of a representative, only to be told that it was my fault for missing my flight. I politely argued that not only were there severe delays at the Denver airport, but the plane left early. And instead of an apology, or an offer for the next flight, I was told it is a requirement to check in at the gate an hour early. I replied by saying we checked in to the airport an hour early, and it doesn’t say on my ticket, your website, or in my email confirmation to be at the gate an hour early. I suppose the customer representative realized they were conveying empty information to defend themselves against blame, and rebutted with “It is common sense to be on time for your flight.” I was so shocked that I immediately asked to talk with a supervisor. But not much to my surprise, there was no supervisor present. But I suppose in an effort to cover for their mistake, I was put on hold and then offered the next flight to London, if I would pay an extra $1,200 per ticket. And she made sure to cut me off by saying “that is all they can do” for me. I refused and asked to be compensated if they could not get me on another flight without fee. Of course, they would not refund me for my already purchased tickets at all and told me to contact the carrier for my connecting flight which had been delayed for three hours since it was their fault I missed the plane, not theirs.

✅ Trip Verified | Gatwick to Toronto via Keflavik. The planes are so loud that you could permanently lose hearing on them. If you need to change your flights at all or need to get in contact with customer service, they will ignore that you even exist. Their website says 24 hours but its definitely a lie. I have contacted them via facebook, email and their supposed 24 hour customer service line and still have received no sort of contact at all. The seats are small, very little leg room, you are literally better off flying with ryanair.

✅ Trip Verified | Toronto to Frankfurt via Keflavik. The flight started well. Service was great, they had cute things for the kids, what seemed like a good entertainment system. The problem started with the delay on the ground before departure. There's nothing inherently wrong with delays, safety should come first; but we were repeatedly promised "ok 30 mins" only to have it extended to another 30 mins, and yet another 30 mins, and yet another - this attitude of miscommunication unfortunately continued throughout the entire flight experience. We were supposed to fly from Toronto to Frankfurt with a connection in Reykjavik. Unfortunately due to the long delay in Toronto, we missed our connection. Again, these things happen, the question is: How does the airline deal with it? In Icelandair's case -not well! First, upon arrival in Reykjavik, it was completely disorganized. Nobody told us where to go, even though connection times are extremely short. There were apparently 2 counters one could go to to rebook connections (about 5-10 mins from each other in the airport), but only one of them was the right one, and nobody told us which of the two to go to. So after some trial and error, we arrived at the right counter and waited for 20 mins, only to be told that we were wasting our time even in this line, because we actually were already rebooked and had to go pick up all our luggage and recheck it in. Fine, except because there's only ONE daily flight from Reyjavik to Frankfurt (unbelievable, given the hub Frankfurt is), we were rebooked on another 2-leg connection via SAS through Copenhagen instead. And SAS decided to open only a single check-in counter, despite the fact that there was a huge lineup of Icelandair passengers doing the same rerouting we were. All in all, it was a big mess, delayed multiple hours, arrived like 9-10 hours behind schedule in frankfurt, and it was all very poorly handled by Icelandair. To be fair, the tickets were much cheaper than say Lufthansa, so I can't say I fully regret it, but with kids and lots of luggage, it was probably among my worst flying experiences, and I fly often.

✅ Trip Verified | Flight to London cancelled after I boarded the plane. Poor communication from the airline. When they reach high call volumes, their customer service line actually shuts down. They put me up in a poor quality hotel, and told me to come back the next day and check in at the info desk. When I did so, I was told I had to buy another flight because I missed my flight. That was not only untrue (I boarded the plane and they scanned my boarding pass) but impossible (the plane never left!). After escalating the issue, I was rebooked for later that evening. I lost a day of my vacation, paid for a hotel I couldn't stay at (non-refundable) and had to change my connecting flight (which cost me about $200). My return flight was delayed 6 hours. When we landed, the pilot decided to sit on the runway for 2 hours because it was raining and windy. That only got worse. I was supposed to have a stopover in Iceland that night and spent $145 to visit the Blue Lagoon. I was unable to go due to the delays, so I ate that expense, and my stopover consisted of sleeping in a hotel and flying out the next day. After returning home, I called their customer service and they are still "unavailable due to high call volumes". I will never use this airline again, and would not recommend using them if you have a connecting flight, or being tempted by the stopover offers. It's not worth it! Fly with a different airline. They have bitten off way more than they can chew with their marketing campaigns and cannot support the influx of tourists they are receiving even in off season! The small airport in Reykjavik is completely overloaded and disorganized.

✅ Trip Verified | Chicago to Keflavik. When you shop an airfare you have choices. I would advise you to select another airline besides Icelandair. If your flight goes according to plan, you'll probably enjoy the experience. However, if anything goes wrong (and with air travel something often does), they don't stray from the script well. Their customer service is driven through their national office which is unresponsive. The only way we ever got them to respond was after going public on social media - then they respond right away. Try to the proper channels and it's radio silence. This is a company that is so broken, I would advise you to fly someone else.

✅ Trip Verified | Flew from Manchester to Keflavík. Check-in went smoothly with very helpful staff. The seat was surprisingly comfortable with plenty of legroom (I am 175cm tall). The Boeing 757 I was on was clearly old, but the cabin was very clean and modern. There is IFE on the flight (which is a surprise considering it is a 2 hour flight) although the selection of movies and TV shows are limited (but enough to get through the short flight). We were travelling on Icelandair’s 81st anniversary and they gave us all Icelandic sweet bread for free, which I felt is a really nice of them. Overall, I felt that the experience with Icelandair has exceeded my expectations of the company and I would definitely travel with them again.