Icelandair

Travelled with 2 small children. Good value for money. Meals for adults prebooked and standard economy class food / same standard as Easyjet. Children given attractive food boxes on all legs (no need to pay on aircraft or pre book). Children given excellent entertainment pack with cards, colouring packs, headphones and a cleverly designed blanket which folded into a backpack for the longhaul legs. Crew caring and considerate. Preboarding for those with families. Very generous baggage allowance included in price of ticket. Quick connecting times. Leather Recaro seat with good legroom for economy class. Inflight entertainment screen good but the choice of music and films dated and very limited. TV programmes tended to be pilot programmes - this was the only inflight downside. Nice flying on small aircraft that are quick to load and unload. Before you fly it is made quite clear that adults will not be fed nor will there be alcohol unless you pay. Another downside is that while Keflavek airport was very easy to transit through, it is absolutely filthy and in need of a deep clean as this clearly does not happen between the waves of flights.

I purchased a round trip Icelandair business class ticket New York to Norway via a short stopover in Iceland. Overall, I have mixed feelings regarding Icelandair's Saga class. Icelandair seems very nonchalant about opening their ticket counters at the scheduled times. At JFK, agents didn't arrive until 11:10am, although their notice stated they would open at 10:30am. While I don't know if this was a specific issue about JFK, it was nevertheless frustrating. One of the chief reasons for buying a more expensive ticket is that Business class tickets allow you to utilize the express line when going through airport security; however, you can't do this with Icelandair. As it was explained to me by one of the security agents in Oslo, Icelandair will not pay the fees all airlines have to apparently pay for the fast-track security check, thus preventing all their passengers from using it. Icelandair does not open a specific counter for Business class ticket holders, nor do they allow Business class passengers to board their planes before Economy passengers. On the face of it, this appears very egalitarian of them; unfortunately, what this means is that all passengers get to experience a jumbled mass of frantic pushing once the "now boarding" announcement is called. Obviously, this wouldn't be an issue if people didn't behave in such a manner, but this always seems to happen, regardless of the country. To conclude, my primary reasons for buying a more expensive ticket was that I thought I'd be able to avoid the massive security lines and the boarding frenzy, which are two things I personally don't like. With Icelandair Saga class, you're going to have to experience this whether you like it or not. Is the food or service better in Saga class? While I can't say, my hunch is Icelandair treats all its passengers quite equally. As such, I don't think you're getting anything more for the money with Saga class, and your flight on Icelandair would be just as good in Economy.

My boyfriend and I were quite pleased, despite a few glitches, with our recent flight to Minneapolis on Icelandair. Check-in at Arlanda was a tad slow but border agents were friendly enough. Our flight was full to Reykjavik but the seats were surprisingly roomy so you didn't feel too cramped. We landed uneventfully in Iceland with our hour layover and once past border control, we ended up standing in a huge queue for our next flight along hundreds of other passengers flying to Boston, Washington DC and Toronto. To our surprise, there weren't any waiting areas at these gates so for at least a half hour, it felt like we were cattle amongst our fellow passengers. Boarding, thankfully, began on time, so it was onto our next leg of the flight. I believe Icelandair's entertainment system to be quite good but unfortunately both my boyfriend and I had systems that didn't work at all so we couldn't enjoy it. One of the male flight attendants was very sweet and helpful, though, offering to give us complimentary beverages or snacks, but for this 6-hour flight, we felt that wasn't enough. Luckily I had downloaded enough movies on my iPad to watch and my boyfriend had his Kindle, otherwise we would have been bored and restless. The flight was very smooth, making it a pretty uneventful flight. These planes could definitely use an upgrade (and a thorough cleaning), since you can tell they've seen better days. But, for the total flying time it took for us to arrive at our destination, and the value for money, it was a pretty pleasant experience.

Despite unfortunate delays in Halifax, I compliment the crew for a very enjoyable, if late fight. Polite, efficient service from crew. Excellent food with an Islandic flavor and excellent selection of wines and schnapps. Comfy if a little dated seats. Outstanding airport experience. Found some great local sweaters in the shops.

Surprisingly good experience and good value for money. The check in was efficient, seating comfortable and spacious. Crew were friendly and efficient, food for sale on board was of good quality and the inflight entertainment good for such a short flight.

We waited two hours, past our departure time before they loaded the plane. An hour later, they unloaded us. We waited for 45 minutes before we got another plane, and then it was not running either. We arrived four plus hours after our scheduled time. All connecting flights were already gone, so they said good luck. We had to spend the night in Seattle, with no help, or reservations. Everyone passed it off to someone else to help us. We were given a piece of paper that said we had a flight the next day at 9.40 am. When we showed up at the airport, the connecting airline was confused by our piece of paper. We had to go to a special line and untangle the mess.

Icelandair employees are borderline rude and completely lacking in the concept of customer service. From start to finish, the experience was stressful and left me angry. To begin with, I tried to check in online using the email sent to me, but the boarding passes would not download, no matter how many times I tried. When we got to the airport we discovered an extremely long line of people wanting to check in, I asked an employee if having checked in online we could avoid the line. She said no. So what is the point of online check-in? When we finally got to check in, the agent was silent, even though she could have, and should have, warned us that the line through security was impossibly long such that there was no way we were going to get to the gate on time. People were pushing and yelling and breaking the line, trying to make their flights. No airport or airline personnel was in sight to offer assistance. Finally, after more than an hour, a person in a uniform - unidentified - pushed a man in front of us and said that he needed to make his flight that would be leaving in a few minutes. At that point, we were already beyond the boarding time for our flight. The person turned to us and said "they are holding the flights." No other information was forthcoming. When we finally got to where we could see the security people, it was immediately obvious why it was taking so long. Only one screening station was open! Unbelieveable. We had to run at full speed to the gate, and were the last people they let board. Who knows if there were people who were less fortunate. we had no time at the airport to change our money or apply for the tax refund. So this all cost me more than it should have. We loved Iceland, but thanks to Icelandair I will never go back."

Planes were comfortable, plenty of inflight entertainment, flights on time and arrived a little earlier than scheduled. Prices were incredibly good, however they do fluctuate day to day so make sure you check dates around when you'd like to fly - they may be a lot cheaper on other days. The only drawbacks was getting through check ins on the flight back. We ended up being separated on the plane which, with me being a nervous flyer, didn't bode well. Also the queues for check in at Keflavik were rather long even though we were effectively just dropping our bags off. On the whole though, excellent! It would be nice if airlines didn't capitalise on the fact that if you are hungry or thirsty you have to pay over the odds for food and drink, although this is the same for many airlines.

My expectations were low for Saga Class because the price was half of what I would have paid for Business Class on most transatlantic carriers. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised. The good: Air France Lounge access in BOS was excellent. Check in was great. Saga Lounge in Reykjavik was excellent. Nice AF lounge in Frankfurt. I did a two day layover in Iceland which I enjoyed. The food was good to excellent. I preordered each meal. The lamb was the best choice. I found the crew to be very pleasant and accommodating onboard. The 'less than good': Remote stands in Reykjavik. Not a problem arriving, but leaving was very uncomfortable. They loaded and loaded and loaded folks onto that bus. We waited and kept waiting with the door open and a cold gale coming through. Seriously? They couldn't get another bus? Finally, the flight from KEF to FRA was full in Saga Class with Icelandair execs and their spouses. They were some of the most obnoxious, demanding, and rude passengers I have ever encountered. They got their luggage hand delivered in FRA before any other passengers.

I just had 4 flights on Icelandair in the past 2 weeks and they were all excellent. The in-flight entertainment systems were working on all 4 flights, they were all basically on time except for one that was about 45 minutes late taking off. All of the planes seemed in good shape to me and were clean. The seats in economy were much roomier than other airlines I've been on. Plenty of leg room. I have had issues with the seat belts being tight on other airlines and this is the first time I have had plenty of extra slack with the seat belt. I also found the seats to be a little wider than what I have experienced in the past. I did purchase a couple of snack items from their menu and they were very good. They offer a wide selection of items to eat for many different tastes. The attendants were all excellent, going out of their way to help and bring pillows, blankets, headphones, etc. I noticed one lady was offered an iPad to watch when her screen wasn't working and another passenger was moved to an empty seat to be more comfortable. I myself was offered a seat up in SAGA class when I mentioned I wasn't feeling well. I did not take them up on it but I appreciated the offer being made. I think this is a really good airline and they do not seem budget in any way even though their low prices tell a different story. I would highly recommend them to anyone.