Skift Take
As coronavirus constraints ease, Icelandair is slowly going back to its gateways with global travel from the United States and taking on deep space left by Norwegian and Wow Air. The airline company is hoping this marks a return to normalcy, and a big increase in travel and success.
Ruthy Muñoz
Given that stopping flights in March, 2020, Icelandair is resuming direct flights in between Iceland and Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Okay, routine repair of a sidelined flight. Yes, however it might indicate something larger.
The return to flying out of Minneapolis-Saint Paul for Icelandair comes on the heels of the collapse of low-cost, long-haul zipping Norwegian Air, which emerged from bankruptcy with a new CEO at the helm, as well as Wow Air’s buckling simply months before the pandemic, which led to the airline company leaving passengers stranded worldwide.
The death of both of these airline companies’s long-haul transatlantic flying at budget plan prices has left a vacuum in affordable flying.
Get in Icelandair to evaluate the new post-pandemic waters. The airline is presently providing 4 flights a week departing from the Twin Cities with plans to offer one day-to-day flight beginning July 16.
“Iceland is now open to all vaccinated travelers from the U.S. and Europe, which is starting to open their borders as well,” said Bogi Nils Bogason, CEO of Icelandair. “We are pleased to go back to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with non-stop flights to Iceland and connections to the U.K., Scandinavia and Central Europe.”
While Icelandair said it didn’t have specific guest counts for Sunday’s flight, it stated it was very delighted with the passenger loads and sees a really promising scheduling trend for the summertime, a spokesperson stated.
The return to the Twin Cities is simply among several U.S. airports Icelandair has resumed service to including New york city’s John F. Kennedy (JFK), Newark and Dulles airport in the nation’s capital. Other cities include Orlando, Chicago-ORD, Denver, Seattle, Portland, and Toronto, Canada.
“We are gradually going back to our entrances that were affected by the pandemic and we will continue to increase operations and frequency as protocol allows and need boosts. We will be returning service from BWI (Baltimore International airport) starting spring 2022,” the spokesperson stated.
Still, low-priced, long-haul airlines that focus entirely on this segment face several difficulties, stated George Dimitroff, an expert with Ascend by Cirium. The very first difficulty is they tend to carry leisure traffic and are subject to the peaks and valleys of leisure demand, he said.
“When the business design counts on a very high load factor to recover cost with low fares, which load aspect falls off-season, the business design begins to bleed cash extremely quickly,” Dimitroff said. “There are more off-peak than peak months of the year, so it is very hard to offset losses made off-peak.”
Dimitroff stated a few of the expenses cost savings that inexpensive airline companies can accomplish on short-haul are merely not achievable on long run, due to the fact that it is a more equal opportunity in between business models.
Icelandair, with its concentrate on bringing travelers in the Minneapolis area or within a short driving range of the airport to Europe, is doing rather well for a foreign carrier based upon information offered by Cirium, the aviation information business.
According to the data provided by Cirium, Icelandair is preparing 25 flights between Minneapolis-Saint Paul and Europe in July, six flights less than it offered pre-pandemic in July, 2019, the information provided by Cirium shows.
“Icelandair is simply benefiting from the Covid-19 shake-up of its weaker rivals to resume its traditional organization design with more recent airplane and lower costs, intending to provide thoroughly prepared and ideally continual development,” said Dimitroff.
Additionally, Icelandair is able to use a competitively priced company product through its strong relationship with corporate and travel agents when organization travel returns in the fourth quarter of 2021, Dimitroff approximated.
Icelandair’s preliminary 4 weekly flights are operating on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft with 160 seats to Keflavik International Airport, which serves Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavik, said a representative from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport commission.
An Icelandair representative said as demand boosts, its daily flights will be on a bigger Boeing 757, with the ability of operating various airplane based on accessibility and demand.
Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport is seeing a big boost in travel this summertime with the easing of Covid-19 limitations and increasing vaccinations rates, an airport spokesperson stated.
Airline companies are operating 404 everyday departures to 184 locations in June– 177 domestic and seven international– versus 139 day-to-day departures year over year, said the airport representative.
Come July, airlines are set up to run 421 daily departures, the airport spokesperson said.