KCRag Forum

The best perk of Icelandair is the free stopover in Iceland for up to 7 days if you are going onto other destinations in Europe.

Prices are not looking too bad either, priced out a flight to Copenhagen in Early June and it was coming out at $697 roundtrip.

brewcrew1000 wrote:Icelandair is a decent airline but we most likely won't see the rock bottom fares of 99 each way that WOW offers. Also, 5 months seems like a really short timeframe to launch a new route. I could see this only lasting a couple years. I'm excited, I will be trying to look for decent deals on this route as we wanted to go to Iceland.

Sounds like the airline wants to make it daily once it gains a solid footing. I think this is in some ways better than getting an ULCC like Wow. Additionally I see no reason why this route would only last a few years. It will be interesting to see if WOW who has been looking at KCI will still come.

There is a chance this route picks up some connecting traffic from the west coast primarily in Seattle, Portland and San Francicso. The reason being is that Alaska Airlines has a Code-Share/Partnership with IcelandAir. It would be nice if KCI could land Condor Airlines also since they are another Code-Share Partner with Alaska. It could possibly pave the way for a Focus City here with Alaska Airlines, Alaska needs to find ways to grow and setting up a couple focus cities in the Midwest could help.

Icelandair already flies to SEA and PDX, so the only theoretical gains we'd see from Alaska codesharing would be for people coming from SFO or SAN.

Icelandair is also a JetBlue codeshare, so this flight *might* be of some interest to JetBlue if they want to enter the market here.

swid wrote:Icelandair already flies to SEA and PDX, so the only theoretical gains we'd see from Alaska codesharing would be for people coming from SFO or SAN.

Icelandair is also a JetBlue codeshare, so this flight *might* be of some interest to JetBlue if they want to enter the market here.

The timings for SAN flights wouldn't really work out since the filght gets into MCI at 11:55pm. If the times work right there could be some traffic from SEA and PDX but it will be minimal. A dummy booking from SEA and PDX to KEF had me connecting in MSP and DEN on some days but these flights cost more then the nonstop so nobody is actually probably booking them.

I find it odd that the plane is going to be sitting idle at KC for like 20 hours, seems like they could find a better use for that 20 hours. Hell they could run a 5th freedom route from KC to Vancouver and still have like 10 hours spare.

brewcrew1000 wrote:I find it odd that the plane is going to be sitting idle at KC for like 20 hours, seems like they could find a better use for that 20 hours. Hell they could run a 5th freedom route from KC to Vancouver and still have like 10 hours spare.

A comment in The Points Guy article on the new route noted that keeping the plane overnight here allows the same crew to fly both legs.

swid wrote:

brewcrew1000 wrote:I find it odd that the plane is going to be sitting idle at KC for like 20 hours, seems like they could find a better use for that 20 hours. Hell they could run a 5th freedom route from KC to Vancouver and still have like 10 hours spare.

A comment in The Points Guy article on the new route noted that keeping the plane overnight here allows the same crew to fly both legs.

To get from KC to Dublin (one of it not the closest to Iceland) is 11.5 hours of flying. The schedule probably ties into work hour limits where their pilot schedules and routing means they need a long layover.

The prices are outstanding. Even if this just helps drive costs down into Europe this could move our planned trip up by a couple years. Their current costs are about half what I was counting on. Didn't have a chance to check before but very pleased now.

Is Iceland in the EU? Is it Shengen for customs?

EU, no; Schengen, yes.

Then it might be easier and quicker to go through customs in Iceland than on the Continent.

It's a start but I'd much prefer a flight that terminates on the continent. As it is, on the outboard leg, it's simply trading the connection location with some east coast city unless one is wanting to see a bit of Iceland. Iceland still requires a multi hour flight to continental Europe. The payoff is on the way back - going through customs in KC rather than scrambling to get luggage off the rack, through customs, and rechecked during the connection. Still, not sure this alone would be worth spending a ton of money upgrading the present terminals at KCI.

Highlander wrote:It's a start but I'd much prefer a flight that terminates on the continent. As it is, on the outboard leg, it's simply trading the connection location with some east coast city unless one is wanting to see a bit of Iceland. Iceland still requires a multi hour flight to continental Europe. The payoff is on the way back - going through customs in KC rather than scrambling to get luggage off the rack, through customs, and rechecked during the connection. Still, not sure this alone would be worth spending a ton of money upgrading the present terminals at KCI.

I compared flights with them and United to Dublin on the same day and as close to leaving at 5pm. United went through DC and was 30 minutes faster and cost twice as much.

They're going to fill every flight.

This alone isn't worth it, but it's the snowball effect that is.

This airline will take European flyers from Delta, United, etc. So now the incumbents don't have as many easy tickets for the domestic leg from KC. This means they can't count on the international customer lock in to keep prices high on the domestic legs. So some domestic flights should see lower prices.

IcelandAir Cargo will set up shop in KC

If KCI landed an airline like Aer Lingus with Non Stops to Dublin would KCI even have to do any terminal upgrades since Dublin has preclearance.

ldai_phs wrote:IcelandAir Cargo will set up shop in KC

Nice, source? They only hit a handful of US cities. That may mean we get seafood from their waters...
https://www.icelandaircargo.com/product ... d-seafood/

earthling wrote:

ldai_phs wrote:IcelandAir Cargo will set up shop in KC

Nice, source? They only hit a handful of US cities. That may mean we get seafood from their waters...
https://www.icelandaircargo.com/product ... d-seafood/

I dmd them

Delta continues to expand their network out of KC.

1 N/S to Seattle begins in June
1 additional N/S to Boston, for a total of 2, begins in June

hartliss wrote:Delta continues to expand their network out of KC.

1 N/S to Seattle begins in June
1 additional N/S to Boston, for a total of 2, begins in June

That makes 4 non stop flights to Seattle; 1 on SW Seasonally, 1 on Delta and 2 on Alaska (1 is seasonally), I could see Alaska cutting one of their routes though.

brewcrew1000 wrote:

hartliss wrote:Delta continues to expand their network out of KC.

1 N/S to Seattle begins in June
1 additional N/S to Boston, for a total of 2, begins in June

That makes 4 non stop flights to Seattle; 1 on SW Seasonally, 1 on Delta and 2 on Alaska (1 is seasonally), I could see Alaska cutting one of their routes though.

Definitely a lot of capacity on this route. DL's flight is well timed for Asian connections.

Frontier added a bunch of new routes today but it doesn't look like any were added to KC. I thought this poster was funny, if you look at one of the new route announcements they show non stop service from Austin to Omaha but the Omaha spot looks like where KCI should be