The Icelandic airline carried around three million passengers in the first eight months of the year, a growth of 21% compared to the previous year.
Icelandair carried 547,000 passengers in August for a total of around three million passengers in the first eight months of the year, a growth of 21% compared to the same period last year. During the months of June, July and August, which are historically the busiest months in terms of traffic, Icelandair carried 1.6 million passengers.
42.6% of connecting passengers
In August, 249,000 people traveled to Iceland, 51,000 from Iceland and 233,000 were connecting passengers. 25,000 passengers traveled on domestic flights. The seat occupancy rate was 83.9% and on-time performance was 78.9%. Blocks of timetables sold during rental operations (chartering) increased by 18% compared to last year. Freight transported, measured in tonne-kilometres, increased by 43%.
North American connections further strengthened this winter
“We are pleased to see continued year-over-year growth and passenger numbers inching closer to our 2019 results. North American markets continue to show the strongest performance, and With this in mind, it’s interesting to look back at how it all began. In August, we celebrated a milestone: 75 years since our first flight to the United States. At that time, we were operating six flights a month to New York and Chicago. The flight duration was more than fourteen hours. Today, we offer up to 600 direct flights per month to 15 destinations in North America, more than all other Nordic airports combined,” explains Bogi Nils Bogason, CEO of Icelandair. “This winter, we will continue to innovate by offering two daily flights almost every day of the week to Boston and New York. Our winter program is more complete than ever, with a large number of destinations, such as Baltimore, Raleigh-Durham, Rome (Georgia) and Vancouver are becoming year-round destinations. We are also excited to connect Akureyri in northern Iceland to our European network via Keflavik this fall. The international connection will be leveraged for five weeks and will offer seamless connections to and from northern Iceland.”
