Review of Icelandair flight Vancouver → Reykjavík in Business

We decided to go on holiday to California. There are no direct flights between Iceland and California since the end of Wow Air so we decided to fly to Vancouver, one of the furthest direct destinations from Keflavík, and connect from there.

Our itinerary:
Keflavík to Vancouver, Icelandair, business class
Vancouver to San Francisco, United, first class
San Francisco to San Diego, United, first class
Los Angeles to Vancouver, Air Canada, economy class
Vancouver to Keflavík, Icelandair, business class

The cost of a return direct flight in business class from Iceland to Vancouver was about 1,100 €. As a comparison the price of a direct flight from London to Vancouver (or San Francisco or Los Angeles) in business class was about 9,000 € for the same dates.

I've already reviewed Icelandair several times but this is my first review of a flight from the west coast of North America.

This is the only narrow-body flight from Vancouver to Europe.

The scheduled departure time is 15.40 local time in Vancouver and the arrival time is 06.00 local time in Iceland. This seems to be an overnight flight but the arrival time to Iceland would only be 23.00 in Pacific Daylight Time (Vancouver time) so you'll feel this flight more as an evening flight.

We took a taxi (paid by the hotel) to the airport.

There was no agent at the business class check-in desk but there were no passengers at all at the economy desks so we were checked in there quickly. Our 5th flight in a row where we could check in with no waiting time.

There were extremely long lines to check-in for the Air France, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines flights in economy class in the check-in area next to ours.

Priority was available at security. We cleared security in a very short time and looked for our lounge.

Icelandair uses Plaza Premium Lounge at Vancouver Airport.

The lounge is quite small but there was enough seating.

There's a serviced bar with pastries, fruits, two types of hot meals and drinks.

Some snacks were available in self-service.

We left the lounge when boarding was about to start and we saw this Air France plane being pushed back.

Priority boarding was available for business class passengers.

Icelandair has a US Domestic First Class-type seats in a 2+2 configuration in business class.

Sparkling wine was offered as a welcome drink.

An amenity kit was also offered.

A headset was also offered.

The captain made an announcement: "We passed our scheduled departure time. We've not been pushed back yet due to the lack of workforce at the airport."

There was only a short delay. We were pushed back at 15.50 for a scheduled departure time of 15.40.

An expected flight time of 6 hours and 40 minutes was announced.

Some plane spotting during taxi:

We took off at 16.00 from runway 08R.

The airport:

We had beautiful views right after take-off.

More views of the Vancouver area:

The first clouds blocked the view as we left the last suburbs of Vancouver and we were heading towards to mountains.

Here is the menu for dinner:

Dinner was served on a tray.

A tasty charcuterie plate with a delightful selection of prosciutto, Milano salami, ciliegine mozzarella, black olives, pickled gherkins and fresh sprigs of frisée on the side. It was not as fancy as the description makes you think but it was good.

Irresistible braised chicken served with dried fruit, brown rice pilaf, buttered broccolini and toasted almonds. I would not use the word irresistible but it was quite good.

Fresh and tasty lemon cheesecake - with a crunchy bottom and a fluffy upper layer. It was OK.

I started to watch Atlantic Crossing on the flight to Vancouver and continued it on the return flight. These are series about the Norwegian royal family during the war. My screen was not working properly. I struggled with it for some time than I moved to seat 1C. The screen here was smaller but it was working perfectly.

Breakfast was served at 20.30 Vancouver time, 01.30 local time over Greenland and 03.30 Icelandic time. This meal was quite good.

Although this flight is normally considered an overnight flight the entire flight was in daylight as there's no sunset at all over Northern Canada, Greenland or Iceland in June. This was the view over the west coast of Greenland and 2am:

The flight map a short time later.

At night between Greenland and Iceland.

We landed at Keflavík Airport at 05.30 for a scheduled arrival time of 06.00.