Welcome Icelandair to Seattle!

Today marks the beginning of the new era in travel to Scandinavia and Europe. Icelandair flight 681 arrived yesterday evening on time after it's 7 1/2 hour trip from Keflavik. Today, the return, flight "Iceair 681" departed today at 4:21pm headed back for Rekjavik. While the flight was not fully booked, it went out with a very respectable load for its first flight.

Looking at its forward bookings, it appears that, at least for the summer period, Icelandair's flights are going to be fairly full in Economy and Economy Comfort. However, in Saga Class, I discovered the bookings were almost non-existant: only 1-2 passengers per flight for the month of August; September on cursory examination didn't look especially better.

What is the problem? The problem is threefold: 1) The Economy - people don't want to pay huge amounts of money to fly anywhere this summer. 2) The price: Icelandair's Business Class pricing has been higher than its transatlantic competition from Seattle, especially SAS who, in its last few days of operation here, is still trying to keep its flights full. 3) The product: Here is the area in which Icelandair will have the greatest challenge. Their Business Class (called Saga) is roughly the equivalent of a domestic First Class service: No sleeper seats, seat pitch at 39 inches and a 7.5 hour flight. All of its competition in Business Class offer sleeper seats as well as advanced lounges at their hubs. While Icelandair does have a Business Class lounge at Keflavik, due to the relatively short connecting time between flights, it would be difficult for a business person to take advantage of its services.

Unfortunately for Icelandair, it is impractical to modify its premium product to meet the needs of a single route. However, the SEA-KEF route is the longest route in it's network now and it would seem some kind of strategy change is going to be necessary in order to achieve better loads in the front of the aircraft...and to be clear: Icelandair needs good loads in Saga Class at a reasonable yield, otherwise, this experiment in connecting Seattle with Scandinavia over Keflavik will be a short one.

For now, Icelandair is here and with their unique product targeted not only at the business traveler, but the leisure traveler between Seattle and Scandinavia, they will continue to provide a vital link between Seattle and the north of Europe. This will be especially inportant after July 31, with the last SAS flight from Seattle to Copenhagen will close 42 years of SAS service to Seattle.