On Thursday, May 31st, Icelandair commenced its seasonal service from its hub in Reykjavik (KEF), in Iceland, to Prague (PRG), the capital city of the Czech Republic. This route will be served four times a week and will be operated using the carrier's Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

The schedule

This service will be operated four times weekly, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays through to October 2023. Flight FI-536 has a scheduled departure of 07:20 from KEF and a scheduled arrival time of 13:05 in PRG, with an approximate flight duration of 3 hours and 45 minutes.

The return service FI-537 to KEF will operate on the same days of the week. This flight has a scheduled departure time of 14:05 from PRG and a scheduled arrival time of 16:00 back in KEF, with an estimated flight time of nearly four hours.

The airline will use its Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft fleet to serve this route, which is configured with 160 seats in total, split into 16 seats in the business cabin in a two-two layout and 144 seats in the economy cabin in a typical three-three configuration.

Icelandair Boeing 737 MAX
Photo: Icelandair

With this new non-stop route, the airline offers its customers in Iceland and the Czech Republic around 2,500 seats every month between two highly popular destinations for tourism and sports, which are growing.

The CEO of Icelandair, Bogi Nils Bogason, about launching service to Prague, commented,

"Prague is an exciting addition to our strong summer schedule. The city has a lot to offer, including culture, art, history, and cuisine. We see great opportunities in offering a morning flight to Prague that ties in well with our North American flights."

Expanding all around

The Icelandic carrier has been expanding its network in recent months by introducing new destinations in North America and Europe.

Within Europe, the airline, in April, commenced its year-round flights to Barcelona, which run three times a week. The carrier will use its 737 MAX 8 or Boeing 757-200 aircraft to serve this route. This is a route that the airline served previously from 2013 to 2017 and then seasonally during the summer of 2021.

An Icelandair Boeing 737 MAX 8 just after takeoff.
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock

On the other side of the Atlantic, the airline has also expanded into Detroit in the United States of America. This seasonal service commenced in May, and the carrier flies non-stop to Detroit four times a week using its 737 MAX 8. This service will run through October 30th.

Furthermore, earlier this year, the airline stated that seasonally served destinations of Rome, Baltimore, and Vancouver would now become year-round services as part of its expansion with frequency increase. The carrier will operate with a 25% capacity increase in its winter schedule this year, and 36 destinations will be served across North America and Europe.

A major factor enabling the airline to expand at such a pace is that it took advantage of the post-pandemic passenger demand throughout 2022 and rapidly increased its capacity to meet the demand. Thus, Icelandair was able to carry 150% more passengers in 2022 than it did in the previous year, 2021.

Clearly, Icelandair is an airline worth keeping an eye on as it expands its route network. It will be interesting to see what the airline does next.

Source: Routesonline.