Wow: Icelandair’s Next US Destination Will Be Tampa!

Wow: Icelandair’s Next US Destination Will Be Tampa!

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The number of flights to/from Iceland the past few years has increased at an incredible pace, thanks to huge expansion from Icelandair and WOW Air. Both airlines operate similar business models, where they’re using Iceland as a hub to connect passengers traveling between North America and Europe.

icelandair-routemap
Icelandair’s routemap

Both airlines also offer “free” stopovers in Iceland, where passengers can explore Iceland for up to a week without breaking the fare, which is a great opportunity, given how beautiful Iceland is. The airlines are not only at a geographical advantage with their hub, but also have a country that a lot of people are intrigued by.

Lately WOW Air’s growth has outpaced Icelandair’s, given that it’s a new airline and they’ve only started flying to North America in the past year and a half. So far they’ve announced flights to Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, San Francisco, and Toronto.

Well, now it’s Icelandair’s turn to announce a new route to North America.

Icelandair-Business-Class-1

Icelandair will be launching 2x weekly flights between Tampa and Reykjavik as of September 2017. While the schedule hasn’t yet been published, I think it’s safe to assume the flight will operate with a 757 and a similar schedule to all their other flights. That’s to say that it will leave Iceland in the afternoon, get into Tampa in the evening, and then return within a couple of hours to arrive in Iceland in the early morning.

tpa-kef

While WOW Air is an ultra low cost carrier, Icelandair is slightly more “premium,” but still low cost. They even have a business class cabin, called Saga Class, though in reality it’s more like what you’d find in domestic first class within the US.

Icelandair-Business-Class-6

I certainly take some hometown pride in this route. I lived in the Tampa area full time for over a decade, and it has been amazing to watch my “home” airport grow. We didn’t even used to have any flights to the west coast, while now we have Delta to Los Angeles, Alaska to Seattle, and soon United to San Francisco.

As far as transatlantic flights go, we’ve had a British Airways flight to London for a long time and an Edelweiss flight to Zurich for several years now. However, just Lufthansa started flying from Tampa to Frankfurt. So this will be Tampa’s fourth transatlantic flight, which is quite exciting.

The article about the new route in the Tampa Bay Times references how successful Lufthansa’s Tampa flight has been, with load factors between 80 and 90%:

Lufthansa’s service from Tampa to Frankfurt was iconic for the region — it was billed to bring more international tourists and become a pipeline for building an international business community in Tampa Bay. The flight has been overwhelmingly successful in its first year with 113,491 passengers, according to data from the Tampa airport.

Lufthansa has consistently posted load factors, or the percentage of filled seats on airplanes, in the high 80 and 90 percentiles since the flight began last year.

“We heard a lot of great news about the profitability of the flight and its impressive load factors,” said Downing, who recently visited Frankfurt to meet with Lufthansa executives. “The Tampa flight is being compared to the Orlando flight, which has been flying daily there for 16 years. That speaks volumes about us as a destination. It would make sense that the next step would be to expand the service. I think the market could easily handle it.”

Bottom line

While the route might seem random, ultimately I suspect it will be successful, especially since it’s only twice weekly. Icelandair isn’t a traditional carrier looking for high yield passengers, but rather can operate profitably by offering efficient one stop connections to Europe for leisure passengers at reasonable fares. Generally they’re able to do quite well in secondary US markets, since they can offer the same one stop connectivity to many points in Europe that other airlines can.

I’ll be excited to see an Icelandair 757 in Tampa later next year!

Are you surprised to see Icelandair expand to Tampa?

Conversations (16)
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  1. MAKP Member

    Just returned from BWI with BA, and Icelandair is introducing kef bwi in 2017, bwi is a good choice as entry to US, its the smallest intl terminal i have ever been in in US so i guess that the CBP waittime is minutes rather than hhr.

  2. ShadyMcCoy Guest

    Glad Philadelphia is the next destination for them. That will be a nice alternative to AA/BA, LH etc. to get to europe. GO BIRDS!

  3. WillFulmer Guest

    Well the NEXT destination will be Philadelphia International (PHL)
    http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Philadelphia-gets-a-nonstop-flight-to-Iceland.html

  4. Tommy Lee Guest

    Wow base fares are cheap, and their seats are comfy, but 1) they charge for EVERYTHING. My wife and I carefully weighed our carry-on (28Kg limit) and checked bag (44Kg limit) but didn't think to weigh her purse, which we were charged $30 for. 2) their website is tricky and their customer service sucks. They have little flags on their booking site, which I thought were language indicators. If you clicked on the French flag,...

    Wow base fares are cheap, and their seats are comfy, but 1) they charge for EVERYTHING. My wife and I carefully weighed our carry-on (28Kg limit) and checked bag (44Kg limit) but didn't think to weigh her purse, which we were charged $30 for. 2) their website is tricky and their customer service sucks. They have little flags on their booking site, which I thought were language indicators. If you clicked on the French flag, you got the site in French, if you clicked on the Swedish flag you got the site in Swedish. Apparently I accidentally clicked on the British flag and when I had completed my purchase the amount was listed in Pounds. I didn't pay much attention to it, as I figured the credit card company would do the conversion. When the conversion resulted in an additional $200 per ticket, I complained to WOW. They refused to adjust the bill, and although my credit card company initially adjusted the bill, they ultimately accepted Wow's charge and stuck me for the extra $200. Be careful out there!

  5. Ken Guest

    Orlando is under a 2 hour drive from Tampa, so I'm surprised they don't just keep the MCO route unless there's enough demand in Tampa and Orlando to justify both routes.

  6. Bagless in LA Guest

    Wow sucks. They literally lost every bag on our flight from KEF to LAX this past Monday. Seriously they forgot to load all of the luggage. 2 days later, still no bag.

  7. Rexx Guest

    They also announced PHL service starting in May!

  8. Clem Diamond

    Completely random but I thought it was hilarious that the title of your post about Icelandair starts with "wow" :D .

  9. Miz Guest

    Are Iceland Air (and WOW air) flights really transatlantic? Iceland is in the middle of Atlantic ocean, and most passengers will need to fly a few more hours over the Atlantic ocean to get to their destination in continental Europe.
    The same logic applies to Azores Airline (previously SATA) with its hub in Ponta Delgada, Azores (Portugal) in the middle of Atlantic ocean.

  10. Me Guest

    I've watched the Tampa market grow and I am excited for the future. I was trying to get a large group trip together to fly from the new Miami to Iceland route, but I may just wait this out and fly directly. Pumped!!!

  11. tassojunior Guest

    Americans don't realize how popular Florida, and especially Disney World, is with European leisure travelers. Does this mean they will have both Orlando and Tampa now?

    Air Berlin has had both Miami and Fort Meyers for a while and now they are adding Orlando in preference to many major cities and OneWorld hubs they still don't serve in the US.

    Especially for lower-cost leisure airlines that appeal to families, Florida rules.

  12. Ron Guest

    Yay for Tampa since this is my home airport. Hopefully we will see some of those flight deals that Icelandair does for NYC.

  13. omar Guest

    very excited! i've flown on both the edelweiss and Lufthansa flights from tampa and both were pretty full. i also recently flew the tpa-lax on DL and it was 100% full! Tampa seems to be an emerging market; i'm glad more airlines are now flying to tampa!

  14. FreeTravelGuys Member

    My parents flew LH FRA-TPA back home yesterday and they said the flight was completely packed.

  15. Derek Guest

    Surprised... yet super pumped for this route as a TPA resident!

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MAKP Member

Just returned from BWI with BA, and Icelandair is introducing kef bwi in 2017, bwi is a good choice as entry to US, its the smallest intl terminal i have ever been in in US so i guess that the CBP waittime is minutes rather than hhr.

0
ShadyMcCoy Guest

Glad Philadelphia is the next destination for them. That will be a nice alternative to AA/BA, LH etc. to get to europe. GO BIRDS!

0
WillFulmer Guest

Well the NEXT destination will be Philadelphia International (PHL) http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Philadelphia-gets-a-nonstop-flight-to-Iceland.html

0
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