British Airways will be flying Heathrow-Rekyjavik three times a week, starting October 25, becoming the first mainline trans-Atlantic carrier to offer year-round service. BA and others have operated summer services, but the winter has been largely left to Icelandair and a handful of budget carriers.
The news is big for travelers who’d like to get to the island nation on award tickets, since at the moment, Icelandair has no award-ticket relationship with other airlines. BA is a OneWorld member, partnered with American and numbers of others.
In BA’s world, it’s a fairly thrifty 8500 Avios each way with a $40 fee, but it’s mostly useful to fliers for whom it simply plays as one more European destination city on the itinerary. That works reasonably well if you’re flying from the east…but for U.S. travelers, not so much. To get an award flight to Iceland, you’d have to fly to Britain and then back to Iceland.
But perhaps if Iceland’s winter tourism business continues to grow, a North American carrier will see the (Northern) light and offer winter service.
