American Airlines has joined the foray of airlines flying to Iceland today. The airline has just announced flights from its Dallas Hub to the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik. This comes as a major surpirse, given the recent announcement of flights by other Icelandic carriers to the Texas city.
American 757 (aa.com)
The Flight
The airline will launch flights on June 7th, 2018. American will launch the flight with one of their 757s, which have 16 business class seats and Main Cabin Extra. Business class has lie flat seats, but lacks built in IFE. The airline touts the flight will have its new bedding provided by Casper and Cole Haan amenity kits. The schedule will be as follows:
DFW→ KEF Departs at 8:20pm and arrives at 9:15am next day
KEF → DFW Departs at 11:10am and arrives at 2:50pm
AA 757 Retrofit Business Class
The flight will operate on a seasonal basis, starting on June 7th to October 27th. It will go on sale on November 20th.
Why Iceland?
I am actually scratching my head around this one. There’s no way I  understand why three carriers will fly to Iceland from Dallas. I can’t imagine there is that much demand for flights to Iceland. As Icelandair launches flights to Dallas, WOW Air did as well. American Airlines will have the advantage of providing connections for people to/from Iceland, but they will not be connecting passengers onward to Europe. This is what stands out to me as weird. They could have started flights from any other hub, such as Philadelphia or Chicago, but chose the already crowded Dallas.
Icelandair 757
WOW Air A330
Landing Thoughts:
Although it is unclear whether or not the flight will be operated daily, I suspect American is trying to drive out its competitors from its home turf. They could outprice Icelandair, and out connect WOW Air. Although a MAJOR long shot, there could be a codeshare being worked with Icelandair, and both flights not operated daily. This could mean that the airlines can provide the other with passengers to connect on different US gateways, and onward to Europe. We will have to see if this happens, but I strongly doubt it.
What do you think? Can you make sense of American’s new Reykjavik flight? Would you pick them over WOW or Icelandair? Let us know!
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There might be logic if it was as a hub through to Europe but odd if that is not an option. The issue we have in the uk is that regional connecivity means flights through heathrow. Making that “hub” somewhere other than london is good for non londoners.
Iceland makes a good such hub for North America but that option is covered by Icelandair and is extremely good value compared to a via london route, particularly for Canada routes.
Could this be an attempt to compete with Icelandair?
Hey Henry! Thanks for reading,
I think they are competing with both Icelandair and WOW, trying to push them away from their home turf. I think AA can out compete them, and at that point they will have to either cooperate with AA, or pull the flight.
Best,
The Millennial Traveller
i’m thinking AA’s strategy isn’t so much about KEF but rather engaging in a fare war to hopefully at least have one of the icelandic carriers call it quits (prevent the LCCs from establishing a foothold in the Dallas market) …
… and to send a strong signal to them that if they announce other AA fortress hubs like CLT then this is the response they’ll get.
The North America – KEF expansion lately has been NUTS. Just counting North American carriers there’s now (or announced) nonstop KEF to YYZ YUL JFK MSP EWR and DFW.
Hey Mogando! Thanks for reading!
I agree, this is probably a strategy to push away any LCCs from their territory. I believe they can actually be successful, because of their sheer size, they can take an L in that flight and the dent will be minimal. But WOW and Icelandair have smaller margins for loss, so I expect that one of them will back out within a year.
I agree that the expansion has been insane, and I believe that we will soon see many of these routes go seasonal or be canceled altogether.
Best,
The Millennial Traveler