Review of Icelandair flight Reykjavík Munich in Economy

Airline Icelandair
Flight FI532
Class Economy
Seat 14C
Aircraft Boeing 757-200
Flight time 03:45
Take-off 06 Apr 18, 07:20
Arrival at 06 Apr 18, 13:05
FI   #50 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 74 reviews
bldavid
By GOLD 2069
Published on 13th April 2018
Icelandair flies to 23 airports in the US and Canada and to 25 airports in Europe. Flights typically leave for Europe between 7 and 8 in the morning, get back to Iceland between 3 and 4 pm, fly to America between 5 and 6 pm to get back to Iceland the next morning. The fleet includes mostly B757's with a few B767's and newly arrived B737's.

Three cabin classes have been offered until a few days ago:

- economy with nice modern seats with in-flight entertainment; soft drinks and child meals are offered free of charge whith a buy-on-board option for snacks and alcoholic drinks; checked-in luggage costs extra;
- premium economy, using the same seats but checked-in luggage, lounge and simple meals included;
- business class called Saga class: 2+2 configuration which is much better than the standard intra-European business class with the middle seat blocked but much less good than the normal transatlantic business class seats found on AF, BA, DL or other airlines.

Icelandair just announced that premium economy class will be discontinued, and I noticed that business class became at the same time much cheaper. While a return business class ticket from Iceland to Europe used to be around 1000 euros, prices have decreased to 400 to 600 euros return to several destinations.

Icelandair often offers an on-line bid to upgrade from economy to business a few days before departure if you book on their website. With a bid of around 200 euros each way you have good chances although there was an IT error for the flight I'm reporting here so I couldn't bid. I don't know if the upgrade bid system will continue with the new two-class offer.

The airport is located 50 kms from donwtown Reykjavík - it took me an easy 40-minutes drive to get there. Despite the large number of flights leaving in the morning it only took me 15 minutes to get from the car park to the terminal building, up to the boarding pass control and through security (I checked-in on-line and I only had hand luggage).

The lounge area is nice with shops and cafés (this photo is from one my previous flights)

photo 01

Boarding is normally through a bridge but this time boarding was from Gate 2 - we had to queue in a long and uncomfortable corridor for quite some time. On the positive side there was a view from the staircase on this Primera charter plane.

photo 02

Economy class has a standard 3+3 configuration. The seats are really modern and well-designed. Legroom is reasonable.

photo legroom

There is an in-flight entertainment with built-in screens - bring your own headseat or buy simple ones onboard. The IFE offers a good selection with a total of 439 musics, 50 movies and 189 TV shows.

photo 03photo 04photo 05

Some of the available movies



There is also the standard air show



Soft drinks are offered free of charge. Snacks can be purchased (card only, no cash), and some of these snacks are a lot better quality than the ones offered by Easyjet, Ryanair or Wizzair.



I bought a Tapas Snack Box and a skyr and both of them were very good.

photo 17photo 18

I spent most of the remaining time watching interesting films about the Icelandic football at Euro 2016 and another about the road to the World Cup in Russia. The last photo from the film was taken in the indoor stadium next to where I live and where my children play football :)



The air show a short time before landing

photo 24

Thank you for reading my flight report.
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Verdict

Icelandair

7.3/10
Cabin7.0
Cabin crew6.0
Entertainment/wifi9.0
Meal/catering7.0

Reykjavík - KEF

7.8/10
Efficiency6.0
Access7.5
Services7.5
Cleanliness10.0

Munich - MUC

8.1/10
Efficiency7.5
Access7.5
Services7.5
Cleanliness10.0

Conclusion

This was a standard Icelandair economy experience (except boarding which was not-so-good this time): reasonably comfortable seats, in-flight entertainment with many options and good quality buy-on-board food and on-time flight.

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4 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 440986 by
    SKYTEAMCHC GOLD 10028 Comments
    Thanks for sahring this report with us. Icelandair offers a great choice of destination and for those traveling to or from the USA to or from Europe the connections seem to be quite good. nothing epcial on board but the IFe has a good choice and the BOb is affordable.
    I like the primera Air pic : it is to start operations from Paris CDG to the US soon !
  • Comment 441009 by
    bldavid GOLD AUTHOR 304 Comments
    Thank you for your comment. Yes, Icelandair offers a very nice economy product with a good connection. Icelandair also offers free stop-over in Iceland which brings a lot of American and Canadian tourists to Iceland.
  • Comment 441048 by
    adjuster11 1 Comments
    I fly this as the 2nd leg Den-Reykjavik, then onto Munich. One thing I've noticed is the fares have gone up a lot, where they used to be $600-1,000 USD round trip, now they are up around that for the one way (to Europe) or (from Europe).

    Lufthansa is offering non stop here Den-Muc for roughly $2-400 USD less. Other carriers such as WOW, United, Air Canada are also getting in the game.

    Have I just got a "bad" Icelandair route? It seems they are almost always the highest price now for "regular" coach seats.

    Just wondering if you folks on the other side of the pond have noticed substantial Icelandair fare increases?

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