Icelandic is my kind of airline!

My first flight to Europe was on Icelandair. I have to admit I was worried about flying with them at the time because I'd read some horror stories about the little Icelandic airport they fly into and the fact that no meal was served despite being an international flight. Despite my misgivings, the flight was about the same as flying on Southwest, minus the snacks, attention from the flight crew, or the offer of any form of potable water. In fact, as soon as the wheels came off the ground, the entire flight crew vanished into the first class area where they were probably offering those passengers liberal helpings of steak tartar, Grand Cru Bordeux and Peruvian flake cocaine. They were not seen again in the low-rent section of the plane until Helen Keller bounced the Boeing down the runway in Seattle, and then only to announce, "Right, you lot -- OFF!".

However, in Icelandair's favor, I was never asked to get out and push, nor was there observable cannibalism on the flight (your milage may vary on both/either). Also, watching the little airplane on the screen inchworm its way across the Atlantic was zen in a "no steak, wine or coke for YOU peons" sorta fashion.

So yeah, I'd fly 'em again because I'm cheap and don't harbor much class resentment.

C'mon Mike. This has to be a tongue in cheek response. We will be flying Icelandair in less than two weeks and I find it hard to believe that any airline would not serve some form of non alcoholic liquid in economy on a flight from the west coast of the US to Europe. That would be inhumane (bordering on criminal). I realize it's a budget flight and we can expect to pay for extras but certainly not fluids of some sort.

Hi Mary,

When you board the plane, you're handed a bottle of genuine Icelandic water. From Seattle to Iceland, that's the last water I saw -- and I was in "Economy Plus". They're happy to SELL you all sortsa little snacks, but I don't recall being offered anything wet for free that entire flight to Iceland or back from Iceland. It's possible you can ask for another bottle of water, but apart from when they were rolling the "Duty-Free Icelandic Goods" cart down the asile, I didn't see a single flight attendant for six hours.

Full disclosure: I asked for a candy bar when I got on the plane and the cart was right by my seat and I was rewarded with TWO Icelandic candybars, one of which was licorise + chocolate. They were very good. But I was also in "Economy Plus", so I guess they'd figured they'd milked me for the extra $180 and they weren't losing much throwing a couple of 1/2 Euro candybars my way.

Just in case, I'd bring a bottle of water along if you're one of those people who likes being hydrated and all. And I would, honest to God, fly Icelandair again -- if only because it provides me a great well of humorous material to draw from. :)

Wow! That's incredible! We will bring water. And if our experience is like yours, it will be the last time we will fly Icelandair.

I just returned on Monday from a 3 week trip. We flew Icelandair on 4 legs.

SEA-KEF: Check in was the easiest check in ever in my life. I'm not kidding. There was no line; they glanced at our passports, then immediately printed out boarding passes and luggage tags. We were done in about 2 minutes. Boarding was fine. We did get the bottle of water. My friend and I had aisle seats across from each other. The woman next to me informed me that she would be getting up every hour to use the toilet and when I told her I might be sleeping, she said I'd have to wake up. My friend mentioned this to a flight attendant, who said the flight was pretty full so she'd do what she could. She came back soon and nicely informed the woman that she had an aisle seat for her if she'd like to move. Brilliant. Now, during the flight the attendants weren't particularly attentive, but they weren't absent, either. I was able to get drinks when I needed them.

Leg 2: KEF-LHR. Short flight. No problems. Keflavik airport is a challenge, though. Quite small, all the gates are next to each other, and the announcements are difficult to hear sometimes. And you never know how many staircases you'll need to climb or if you have to trot across the tarmac or take a shuttle. (None of this bothers me but there were several not-very-able-bodied passengers who were probably inconvenienced.)

Leg 3: CDG-KEF. Don't even get me started on that airport. UGH. In addition to all the drawbacks, there are NO check in kiosks for Icelandair and the line at the check in desk was short but DID NOT MOVE. Everyone had to check in even if they had no baggage to check. There were only 2 people working, and one of them was taken up with ONE couple who spent over 35 minutes with whatever issue they were having. And the one other person kept going over to help her, which meant no one moved in the line. A third Icelandair person came to sit at a terminal but then she proceeded to take only the Saga class customers, none of whom had to wait more than a couple of minutes. It was ridiculous. When it was finally our turn, we asked if this was usual, and she looked a bit blank and obviously couldn't understand why we would ask such a thing. We just rolled our eyes. No bottles of water.

Leg 4: KEF-SEA. There were FOUR flights scheduled at EXACTLY the same time, all adjacent. What a cluster****. No announcements whatsoever. At some point the crowd surged forward and everyone on our flight was herded through into yet another waiting area. We were in this area a good 10-15 minutes (waiting area; no restrooms or anything else). From there we had to go upstairs but both the top of the escalator and the stairs were blocked by people who couldn't move forward. We moved at a snail's pace along the gangway until I was about ready to fling myself onto the tarmac. Bottles of water. No boarding by rows, and it goes without saying that all the people who boarded first were in the front rows. HOWEVER: This was perhaps the most attentive cabin crew I've ever experienced in my life. They were constantly going up and down the aisles offering beverages and making sure all the garbage was collected in a timely manner. I was continually offered water during the flight and they made frequent trips with the beverage cart to keep us all hydrated. They were honestly awesome. After the exhaustion of the CDG and KEF airports, it almost made up for it.

I don't honestly know if I would fly Icelandair again due to the inconsistent experience and the totally preventable situations in both CDG (admittedly a horrible airport) and KEF.

In August 2014, we flew two legs in Economy on Icelandair from Edmonton to Reykjavik (6:15 hours) and, two days later, Reykjavik to Copenhagen (3:00 hours) with adequate bottled water service from the flight attendants. The flight attendant call button is right at your seat if you do need a refill.

Based on our first experiences with Icelandair, I wouldn't hesitate to book again --- and the "no charge" stopover in Reykjavik was a bonus. Hope to return to do a self-driving trip to see more of Iceland.

We flew Iceland Air a few times before Iceland's economic breakdown...was that 2007? The planes we flew on shook and rattled more than any others. The last flight caused me to reach my limit and when the downturn happened, I assumed their stock of planes would only deteriorate. So while it is convenient and inexpensive, relatively, it is not worth the discomfort for me. I don't recall the water situation. My husband also thought, during a flight delay, he observed that the cashiers at the airport in Iceland were taking advantage of people by encouraging people to use dollars and then take advantage of the exchange so that left a bad taste for us as well. We haven't strayed from BA since.

I recently flew Icelandair from Boston to CDG. Although there were downsides (e.g., my bag didn't make the connection in Iceland and it was 5 days before I finally got it; the return check in and boarding at CDG was somewhat haphazard), I'd be happy to fly them again. I consider the whole flying experience pretty miserable these days, with not a whole lot of difference between airlines. And on the upside, Icelandair's flight attendants were perfectly fine, there was water available, and they didn't serve meals.