At Icelandair, No More Baltimore

A lifetime ago, Icelandic Airlines (now Icelandair) flew just one transatlantic route from New York's JFK International Airport to Luxembourg with a mandatory stop at Reykjavik, Iceland's Keflavik Airport (RKV). It was then the only regularly scheduled, non-charter carrier that was not a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and therefore was free to set its own fares. I believe that it also offered only economy class seating, but the students packed those planes in summer would have flown nothing else anyway. In winter, Icelandic offered a $135 roundtrip youth fare to Luxembourg. Best of all, they considered you a youth if you were under 30. A mandatory middle-of-night stop in at RVK, where everybody had to get off the plane and bought duty-free postcards, stamps, Icelandic wool and canned seafood, was a small sacrifice for cheap fares.

Over the years, the airline modernized its name and its fleet and also expanded its route system. US gateways currently are Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Boston (BOS), New York (JFK), Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP, seasonal service) and Orlando (MCO). It is also planning to inaugurate service from Canada next spring, adding year-round service from Halifax (YHZ) on April 21, 2008, and Toronto (YYZ) in on May 2. On the east side of the Atlantic, Icelandair serves flies from Iceland to Scandinavia, Great Britain and continental Europe, and Iceland itself is being promoted as a tourism destination is its own right.

I suppose that something had to give and that is BWI. Icelandair announced that will terminate services from BWI on January 13, 2008, "due to escalating costs and decreasing revenues." In contrast to the "old days" of cheap fuel when its small fleet comprised of aircraft from a previous generation, Icelandair now flies Boeing 757 aircraft and has ordered two Boeing 787 Dreamliners with options on five more. And now, it offers SAGA business class too. But it still comes in with low fares (a current sale, unfortunately expiring tomorrow -- December 13 -- comes in with roundtrip transatlantic fares at under $400 for winter and spring) -- and the opportunity to stop over in Iceland.