Iceland Express

WOW Air confirms Iceland is one of Europe's emerging LCC markets

Located in the North Atlantic Sea, the Republic of Iceland's aviation market, like its volcanic geography, is constantly evolving. An increasing number of LCCs are attempting to enter the market. Iceland’s visibility increased significantly in the past few of years - for the wrong reasons - as the volcanic eruptions of the unpronounceable Eyjafjallajökull volcano caused mass-disruption for the European air transportation industry and as the national economy faced meltdown during the global financial crisis.

Aviation in Iceland is in the headlines again. From Jun-2012, a new LCC WOW Air is launching operations from Reykjavik Keflavik International Airport, the country’s main international gateway and home for national carrier Icelandair and Iceland Express, currently the sole LCC in the Icelandic market. WOW Air plans to operate two 158-seat A320 equipment leased from Avion Express, a Lithuanian cargo and charter carrier.

The carrier’s initial network will consist of 12 services to destinations across Europe including Alicante, Basel, Berlin, Cologne, Copenhagen, London Stansted, Lyon, Paris, Stuttgart and Zurich. WOW Air’s first service will be three times weekly Reykjavik Keflavik-London Stansted commencing 01-Jun-2012.

Icelandair revival a prelude to a battle with Iceland Express?

Icelandair will increase scheduled services by 17% in 2011. The carrier will fly to a record 31 cities with the increased capacity estimated to create 200 jobs directly related to Icelandair’s operations, in addition to related jobs in tourism. In peak season, Icelandair will offer 183 flights per week. This is the latest in a series of announcements from the flag carrier that suggests it has surmounted the very serious difficulties posed by the country’s financial collapse, including a return to the Baltimore – Washington region that it vacated in 2008.

Palmair, one time world best airline, and the oldest tour operator in Britain, turns 50

Bournemouth (UK) based Palmair announced that it intends to suspend all services at Bournemouth Airport for the months of Nov-2010, Dec-2010 and Jan-2011, citing poor advance bookings for winter, but hopes to produce a reduced winter timetable from Feb-2011 onwards. Despite this temporary setback Palmair, which claims to be Britain’s oldest tour operator, is one of the industry’s survivors, having been in business as the ‘in-house’ airline of a travel agent and tour operator, Bath Travel, since 1958 – 52 years.

Ryanair goes medium haul. Is a Middle East hub the goal as it pushes the limits?

The announcement last week from Ryanair that it intends to include Larnaca, Cyprus in its list of destinations raises some interesting questions. Not least amongst them is, just how far can LCCs travel using the business model that is in place now? So far Ryanair has shied away from long haul (transatlantic) operations, which its management knows would require a significant adjustment to the short/mid haul model, though it still insists it will do it one day. It seems Ryanair (or Michael O’Leary) has spoken to airport management in the U.S., for example Niagara Falls airport, about hosting the first route. Now it appears though that Ryanair may be looking at tapping into the Middle East market, by using Larnaca as a base.