I have been looking at flights to Europe which change planes in Reykjavik. However, they only allow 40 or 50 minutes to make the transfer. Can this actually work out?
Yes, everyone makes their flight. They are very well organized.
IF, and I mean it is a big IF, you miss your connection, you might want to have in mind when the next flight to your ultimate destination is. Do they go multiple time a day or only once or twice?
Icelandair will sometimes hold a flight if many passengers are delayed on connection. Since Iceland is not in the EU they are not subject to the same delay rules when flying out of Keflavik.
We've done this several times with no problems. It's a small airport and they do it every day. If you should miss the connection they'll take care of you.
You go through passport control in Keflavik (if you travel to Schengen country) and there is very little time. Airline employees are there assuring everybody that connecting planes will wait until everybody is through immigration. And they indeed wait.
I've easily made connections in Iceland with those amounts of time, even with going through passport control. Many years ago we were flying home on Icelandair from Luxembourg City, and our flight was delayed for several hours. However, they delayed the departure of all US-bound flights so that connections could be made. Of course, that was when there were very few flights in an out of Iceland.
Thanks everyone for your replies. We are looking at Sept., so have time, but Icelandair usually comes up as one of the most economical.
We have done one trip using Iceland Air and will be using them again this upcoming May. We had a very good experience overall on a trip to England in 2016. We flew Alaska Air from Anchorage to Seattle as a separate itinerary and then had booked a round trip on Iceland Air out of Seattle to Gatwick Airport London, via Reykjavik. Our connection was very tight in Reykjavik but no problems - they coordinate their flights very well, even if there is a delay. On the return flight we had created our own very tight connection in Seattle with our two separate itineraries and our return flight from England was delayed about 30 minutes out of Reykjavik. It was pretty stressful as our customs re-entry process was in Seattle so besides customs and leaving security we had to collect our bags and then recheck onto Alaska Air, and go through security again. We were going to miss our flight back to Anchorage but were "rescued" by two Iceland Air ticket agents who knew our predicament - it was all such a blur but they took our bags, manually checked them for us and sent us off to security. Great customer service and we made our flight. Hence we are very happy to fly with Iceland Air again. This time we are flying direct from Anchorage through Reykjavik.