Icelandair is perhaps a bit of a niche airline for Australians, but it offers a lot of connectivity from Europe and North America to Iceland. In fact, a core part of its business model is to offer quick, one-stop trans-Atlantic connections between lots of European and North American cities via its hub in Iceland.

The Icelandic national carrier is not a member of a global alliance. But it does have a useful partnership with Oneworld’s Alaska Airlines, and it competes for trans-Atlantic passengers in two key ways. Firstly, by undercutting the major airlines on price. And secondly, by offering free stopovers in Iceland. Now that’s a pretty cool way to break up a trans-Atlantic crossing!

I recently visited Iceland and to get there, I decided to try Icelandair’s Economy Class from Amsterdam to Reykjavik. To be honest, the fact that Icelandair was flying a Boeing 767 on the route – one of my favourite planes – had a large influence on my choice of airline. All of the other European carriers fly narrow-body jets to Iceland, so this was a bit of a novelty.

My flight was completely full. Many of the other passengers on this flight appeared to be connecting beyond Reykjavik, but I was just travelling as far as Iceland on this occasion.

This review covers my experience with Icelandair’s Boeing 767 Economy Class on the outbound journey from the Netherlands to Iceland. I later returned to continental Europe in Finnair Business Class.

Flight Details

Flight number	FI501
Route	Amsterdam (AMS) to Reykjavik (KEF)
Aircraft type	Boeing 767-300
Class of travel	Economy
Seat number	29F
On-time performance	We arrived 10 minutes late
Star rating

The route

Flight Cost

A return Icelandair ticket from Amsterdam to Reykjavik typically starts from around AUD400 for Economy Light (which only includes carry-on luggage) or AUD500 for Economy Standard, including a checked bag and seat selection.

However, I only needed a one-way ticket and unfortunately Icelandair uses round-trip pricing. One-way airfares are priced considerably higher than just 50% of a one-way, and it would have cost me over AUD500 to buy a one-way Economy ticket on this flight. Instead, I redeemed some Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles that I had sitting in my account!

Booking Icelandair with Alaska Airlines miles

A one-way Icelandair Economy ticket from almost anywhere in Europe to Reykjavik starts from just 7,500 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles. In addition, I paid AUD215 in taxes, fees & carrier charges. (Unfortunately, Icelandair is one of a small handful of Alaska Airlines partners for which Mileage Plan does not waive carrier charges.)

In theory, you could book Saga Class from mainland Europe to Iceland for 10,000 Alaskan miles. This is Icelandair’s premium cabin, with a product similar to Premium Economy on other airlines. However, I could not find a single Icelandair Saga Class award seat available on the Alaska Airlines website – for any route or date.

By the way, if you don’t yet have any Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles, they’re now fairly accessible to Australians! For example, you could buy miles directly from Alaska Airlines, or transfer Marriott Bonvoy points into Mileage Plan.

Alternatively, Australians can also now transfer Amex Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines at a 2:1 rate, then convert those HawaiianMiles at a 1:1 rate into Alaska Mileage Plan miles. Using this method, you could effectively fly Icelandair from Europe to Iceland for just 15,000 Amex Membership Rewards points (plus fees and taxes)!

Airport Experience

Icelandair’s ground handling company at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport uses self-service check-in kiosks and an automated bag drop system.

With my Alaska Airlines award ticket, I was able to check a bag for free. However, I could not choose a seat for free and was randomly assigned 29F, an aisle seat, when checking in. I would have been able to change this seat for €14 (~AU$22) at online check-in, or for €7 (~AU$11) at the airport, but didn’t bother. I was happy enough with that seat anyway.

There were no queues to check in and the automated process worked pretty well. The self-service bag drop machines were among the most modern I’ve seen.

After quickly clearing security at Schiphol Airport, I headed upstairs to the Aspire Lounge. I was able to access that lounge through Priority Pass, but I won’t cover it in this review as this isn’t a standard inclusion with an Icelandair Economy ticket.

I would just mention, though, that the lounge was quite full. By the time I left, the front desk was turning away passengers trying to get in with Priority Pass to prevent overcrowding.

I arrived at the boarding gate after boarding was supposed to have started, but boarding was delayed without explanation and the gate area was absolutely packed. Eventually, Saga Class passengers were called forward. The ground staff then boarded Economy Class by row numbers, which they strictly enforced.

This was the Boeing 767 waiting for us in Amsterdam:

I must admit, I was pretty excited to be getting on board. It was my first time ever on Icelandair, I love the Boeing 767, and Iceland was a brand new country for me – although it had been on my bucket list for a while!

As an aside, I love Icelandair’s new livery. It looks really fresh and clean. I also like how every aircraft has a different coloured stripe on the tail.

The Hard Product

Icelandair has five rows of Saga Class seats at the front of its Boeing 767 in a fairly unusual 2-1-2 layout. The Saga Class seats themselves are not lie-flat; they’re recliner seats which reminded me of the old Qantas 767 “Dreamtime” Business Class seats – for those old enough to remember those.

Behind Saga Class, there are 237 leather Economy Class seats in a 2-3-2 configuration.

The plane was spotless and the colour scheme was distinctly white and grey. It all felt very, well, Scandinavian.

Icelandair 767 Economy seats

I had an aisle seat in one of the pairs of seats by the window. These seats are great for couples – although there aren’t really many bad seats anyway on the 767, with just one middle seat per row of seven seats.

My seat was fairly comfortable, with a good amount of legroom. It had an adjustable headrest and a leather antimacassar with advertising on it for the Keflavik airport bus.

My only real complaint was that there was a box under the seat in front (presumably powering the entertainment system) which makes it impossible to store a backpack under the seat. It also restricted my legroom a bit. But this only affects some seats – there was no such box under the window seat next to me, for example.

There’s no universal power socket around the seat, but there is a USB-A charging outlet beside the in-flight entertainment screen.

In-flight entertainment and Wi-Fi

Every passenger had access to a personal in-flight entertainment screen, which was clear and responsive.

Icelandair’s entertainment system was loaded with a moderate selection of movies, along with lots of TV shows and music.

Unfortunately, most of the visual content had no subtitles available. This was slightly annoying for me because I forgot to bring my own headphones on board, and Icelandair charges for them. More to the point, though, this makes the content relatively inaccessible to passengers who don’t speak English or Icelandic.

Wi-Fi was available for €6 (~AU$10) for the entire three-hour flight. I thought the cost was quite fair; that’s about the same price as parking your rental car near a waterfall in Iceland.

The Soft Product

The cabin crew, who made all announcements in Icelandic and English, were friendly and efficient. Overall, I had a very pleasant flight. But when I think about Icelandair’s soft product, I’m not really sure if Icelandair is trying to position itself as a full-service or a budget airline.

It’s certainly more premium than PLAY, Iceland’s other major airline which is unmistakably an ultra low-cost carrier. At the same time, an Icelandair Economy ticket doesn’t really include that much.

Icelandair seems to be somewhere in the middle – akin to Virgin Australia’s “value carrier” positioning. One of the reasons I say this is that it doesn’t provide any free food in Economy Class. Now, that’s fine on a relatively short flight from Amsterdam to Reykjavik… but the same policy applies on longer trans-Atlantic crossings as well. Some of those flights are eight hours long.

No blankets were provided either, but pillows were available on request.

A lot of the American passengers on my flight had brought their own sandwiches on board. Perhaps they’d learned their lesson after going hungry on their outbound journey to Europe!

Food and drinks

Icelandair does at least offer free non-alcoholic drinks in Economy. The free drinks available include water, tonic water, Appelsin (an Icelandic version of Fanta), Pepsi, 7Up, juice, tea and coffee.

Alcoholic drinks are available for purchase from the on-board menu:

I was a bit hungry and ordered some food from the menu. Most of the options were just packaged snacks like chocolates, muffins or instant cup noodles. But there were a few more substantial options including a ham & cheese baguette, pizza or chicken korma with rice. I believe there might be a few more meal options available if you pre-order.

I paid €10 (~AU$16) for a serve of chicken korma with rice, which I got with a free tomato juice and water. The meal tasted OK, despite the lacklustre presentation.

Later in the flight, the cabin crew came through the aisle offering cups of water.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.