Icelandair Still Launching Anchorage On May 15th?

G500 · Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:11 am

The service was suppose to be twice a week until sept. 2013... Ae they still launching this service? Why not SFO or LAX instead?

Even though I don't see where the market is going to come from, I wish them good luck on this service.

LV · Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:12 am

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Why not SFO or LAX instead?

A 757 doesn't have the range to do SFO or LAX

BigGSFO · Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:23 am

Will this be the only schedule nonstop between Europe and Anchorage?

MAH4546 · Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:34 am

Quoting BigGSFO (Reply 2):
Will this be the only schedule nonstop between Europe and Anchorage?

No, Condor also serves the market.

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Even though I don't see where the market is going to come from,

A wealthy population base in Alaska with a very high propensity to travel internationally and decent demand to Alaska from Germany and Switzerland.

SCQ83 · Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:51 am

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Even though I don't see where the market is going to come from, I wish them good luck on this service.

In addition to what MAH4546 has mentioned, I think this could potentially estimulate tourism to Alaska. Travelling to Alaska from Europe today is costly AND lengthy.

I just checked LON-ANC for summer, and FI is not only the cheapest by a few hundred pounds, but also the shortest trip times (12h10' and 11h30'). Next quickest option is backtracking with Condor (that alternatively flies to FAI depending on the day). That takes 12h55' and 14h50'. If you want something with more frequency (daily), the next best option is via SEA with Alaska/BA, and that goes to 15h31' and 14h30' respectively.

And on top of that, transferring in continental US tends to be an annoying experience. Now you can transfer in KEF (flawless) and arrive to ANC, where you are likely to be the only international flight in a 757 (then again flawless). Nothing remotely comparable to transit in SEA or anywhere else in continental US.

[Edited 2013-04-29 21:53:01]

G500 · Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:57 am

Quoting LV (Reply 1):
A 757 doesn't have the range to do SFO or LAX

don't they serve SEA with the 757??

mjoelnir · Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:07 am

Anchorage will only have two connections to Europe during this summer, FRA with Condor and KEF with Icelandair.
For northern Europe KEF should be the better connection.
Icelandair is also taking some freight on the passenger flights.

[Edited 2013-04-29 23:03:26]

mjoelnir · Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:20 am

Quoting g500 (Reply 5):
Quoting LV (Reply 1):
A 757 doesn't have the range to do SFO or LAX

don't they serve SEA with the 757??

KEF-LAX 3748 nm
KEF-SFO 3653 nm
KEF-SEA 3148 nm
KEF-ANC 2940 nm

SurfandSnow · Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:36 am

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
The service was suppose to be twice a week until sept. 2013...

Makes sense. This covers the entire peak (summer) season when most tourists visit Alaska. Commercial airline service to ANC (and also FAI) is quite indicative of this, with most carriers sharply reducing services between September and May - or offering nothing at all during those months!

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Ae they still launching this service?

I have not seen anything in the enilria posts to suggest otherwise. Icelandair's recent U.S. expansion seems to be going quite well - I wonder if they'll ever give ORD a try?

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Why not SFO or LAX instead?

Those markets are beyond the range of the 757. It seems like SEA and DEN are about as far as the 757 can go from KEF - with a viable payload, anyhow. FI did try a KEF-SFO service with a 767, but it didn't last long. As attractive a market as California may be, I doubt it warrants the use of an orphan fleet type for an all-757 carrier. FI did order some 787s - perhaps they intend to try SFO and/or LAX with this type...

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Even though I don't see where the market is going to come from, I wish them good luck on this service.

I should imagine they are looking to get European tourists headed to Alaska, as well as Alaskans headed to Europe.

ANCsupercub · Tue Apr 30, 2013 6:16 am

Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Even though I don't see where the market is going to come from, I wish them good luck on this service.

As others have said, Condor has served this market with a 763 for years.

Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 4):
Travelling to Alaska from Europe today is costly AND lengthy.

Condor actually is relatively cheap and easy. I have paid more for a winter RT Anchorage - Seattle flight than what many RT Condor flight to Europe cost. Right now, booking late, you can find tickets for under $850 RT. Also, it is a shorter flight from Anchorage (4677 miles) than any other west coast cities ( Seattle 5108, SFO 5699, LAX 5806). I enjoy FRA-ANC because you get back before you left.

Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 4):
(that alternatively flies to FAI depending on the day)

Condor flies direct three days a week (Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday) and during peak season adds a Thursday flight that has a quick stop in Fairbanks.

Quoting BigGSFO (Reply 2):

Will this be the only schedule nonstop between Europe and Anchorage?

Edelweiss attempted to serve Anchorage last year. However, their flights were poorly marketed and significantly more expensive than Condor. It wil be interesting to see how well Icelandair does. Obviously there is a market, but is it big enough for two players?

as739x · Tue Apr 30, 2013 6:35 am

Quoting surfandsnow (Reply 8):

Those markets are beyond the range of the 757. It seems like SEA and DEN are about as far as the 757 can go from KEF - with a viable payload, anyhow. FI did try a KEF-SFO service with a 767, but it didn't last long. As attractive a market as California may be, I doubt it warrants the use of an orphan fleet type for an all-757 carrier. FI did order some 787s - perhaps they intend to try SFO and/or LAX with this type...

The loads to SFO were actually not that bad according to sources I had. The primary issue was the 767 rotated SFO-KEF-LHR and the reliablity became a major issue. With a 2 weekly flights that was a big issue with performance.

c172akula · Tue Apr 30, 2013 3:36 pm

I'm hearing rumours of FI to YEG, any truth to it?

ORDTLV2414 · Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:53 pm

Iceland Air is becoming very popular, and KFI is an awesome scisscor hub for TATL. I really want them to start service at ORD and TLV but it seems improbable. FI needs to get either more 757's and try one stops in YQX or BGR for fuel, or they need to invest in some 777's or 767's or even some 787's/

mjoelnir · Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:06 pm

Quoting as739x (Reply 10):
The loads to SFO were actually not that bad according to sources I had. The primary issue was the 767 rotated SFO-KEF-LHR and the reliablity became a major issue. With a 2 weekly flights that was a big issue with performance.

Icelandair still owns at least one B767-300ER, it is wet leased to SBA. Icelandair had three

Most of the Icelandair B 757 are doing one trip to Europe and one to North America or two trips to Europe.
The flights to DEN, SEA, ANC and SFB stay overnight and fly back in the morning, that gives Europe back and forth and the trip out to North America and the next day back plus a Europe trip.
The B 767 were doing a similar schedule, and they had two of them while they were doing SFO.

Quoting c172akula (Reply 11):
I'm hearing rumours of FI to YEG, any truth to it?

Icelandair is contemplating more North American destinations both in Canada and the USA.

YEG is in the discussion. Several years back they did ORD and DTW.

DrColenzo · Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:48 pm

Quoting surfandsnow (Reply 8):
Makes sense. This covers the entire peak (summer) season when most tourists visit Alaska.

Tourism could be a huge market for Icelandair in Alaska, but the other is business; the links between the arctic community based on raw materials, both extraction/sales and technical expertise and it is with the latter than many Icelandic people excel. Indeed, their links with Canada are such that a resent econometric study by a colleague of mine demonstrated that adopting the Canadian Dollar would make more sense than Iceland adopting the Euro! The US Dollar scored somewhere between the two, incidentally.

I love Alaska but dislike Condor - this flight makes a lot of sense for me and i have been looking at it for a while.

woodsboy · Tue Apr 30, 2013 11:49 pm

Its tourism, not business or the "rich Alaskans who want to travel". Condor flights have done well for over a decade and its tourists coming FROM Europe who populate those flights. Yes, there is opportunity for those of us who live in AK to travel to Europe in the summer but don't fool yourself, there aren't enough business ties between Alaska and Iceland (I cant think of one) that would generate more than a few seats back and forth between Anchorage and KEF.

Alaska is filled with European visitors in the summer months and the year round market is always growing so that's the market.

Yes it is starting, no doubt they have lots of bodies already booked!

mbk1999 · Wed May 01, 2013 12:31 am

And let's not forget the cruise industry. Trips thru the Inland Passage are big business and now FI serves both ends of that market with ANC and SEA/YVR.

mjoelnir · Wed May 01, 2013 1:32 am

It is also business, the industry is fishing, fish processing, fish farming and producing and selling equipment for that.

It is something connecting Alaska with Norway, Germany, Sweden and Iceland and other European countries.

RobertS975 · Wed May 01, 2013 1:54 am

Lots of pax will be coming from or to cruises.

DrColenzo · Wed May 01, 2013 8:13 am

Quoting mjoelnir (Reply 17):

It is also business, the industry is fishing, fish processing, fish farming and producing and selling equipment for that.

It is something connecting Alaska with Norway, Germany, Sweden and Iceland and other European countries.

That's spot on, fishing is very important to Iceland and the industry there invests massively in other countries, my own Scotland being one of the largest. I think Icelandair is very good at seeing the business, as opposed to tourist, case for its routes - business traffic is much less seasonal than the tourist trade and can sustain routes during dry periods when an airline doesn't have the value added of the tourist trade.

Fishing is also of great benefit to the air freight trade - most the shell fish caught in my hometown of Mallaig ends up on a plane from Inverness or Glasgow heading to Spanish tables in the evening. I wonder what the size of the fish air freight market is from Iceland and Alaska?

mjoelnir · Wed May 01, 2013 8:43 am

Quoting DrColenzo (Reply 19):
Fishing is also of great benefit to the air freight trade - most the shell fish caught in my hometown of Mallaig ends up on a plane from Inverness or Glasgow heading to Spanish tables in the evening. I wonder what the size of the fish air freight market is from Iceland and Alaska?

KEF is with 2,380,214 # 10 in pax in the Nordic countries but # 5 in freight with 40,171t (Wikipedia.org) quite a bit of that is fish.
You have compare that to a population of only 320.000 in Iceland.

FlyASAGuy2005 · Wed May 01, 2013 9:12 am

Quoting mjoelnir (Reply 17):

Quoting DrColenzo (Reply 19):

Delta's JFK-KEF-JFK is one of their heaviest narrowbody turns. Lots of freight in the belly.

YULWinterSkies · Wed May 01, 2013 3:12 pm

Quoting LV (Reply 1):
Quoting g500 (Thread starter):
Why not SFO or LAX instead?

A 757 doesn't have the range to do SFO or LAX

Competition to LAX or SFO is tough. FI would not provide much more than LH, AF, BA, and US JV partners do, which is (at worst) a one-connection trip from the main Euro cities to SFO or LAX.
If anything, FI would have less to offer since they are not part of a major alliance, and have a FF program of their own...

ANC, however
1. has virtually no competition from Europe (see exception below) so every Euro city is also at least 2 flights away.
2. flying North through KEF really makes the distance & flying time shorter, and keeps costs for the airline lower.

FI's success really is all up to how much of a market there is between ANC and Europe. It is fairly minimal for anything else than (seasonal) tourism, I guess, but one doesn't know until trying. Direct ANC-KEF traffic... I would say, forget about it!

Knowing that Japanese tourists LOVE Iceland, anyone think a NRT-ANC-KEF routing would bring pax to FI? -note, I do not know who flies NRT-ANC, but a code share could be a nice idea! That would shorten the long trip from Japan to Iceland as well.

Quoting Mah4546 (Reply 3):
Quoting BigGSFO (Reply 2):
Will this be the only schedule nonstop between Europe and Anchorage?

No, Condor also serves the market.

Viscount724 · Wed May 01, 2013 11:09 pm

Quoting mjoelnir (Reply 7):
Quoting g500 (Reply 5):
Quoting LV (Reply 1):
A 757 doesn't have the range to do SFO or LAX

don't they serve SEA with the 757??

KEF-LAX 3748 nm
KEF-SFO 3653 nm
KEF-SEA 3148 nm
KEF-ANC 2940 nm

Didn't NW once operate FRA-DTW (3616 nm) with the 757? That's almost as far as KEF-SFO.

Sokol · Thu May 02, 2013 9:09 pm

Quoting ANCsupercub (Reply 9):
Condor flies direct three days a week (Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday) and during peak season adds a Thursday flight that has a quick stop in Fairbanks.

Since last year 2012 Condor flies 4 days a week Frankfurt direct to Anchorage (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday)
Only on Thursday on the way back to Frankfurt flies via Fairbanks (ANC-FAI-FRA), Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday (ANC-FRA)

New schedule for Tuesday and Saturday has changed to the evening.

Frankfurt - Anchorage
Tuesday 17:35 - 17:15
Saturday 16:25 - 16:05

Anchorage - Frankfurt
Tuesday 20:45 - 16:30
Saturday 18:25 - 14:10

Viscount724 · Thu May 02, 2013 9:30 pm

Quoting Sokol (Reply 24):
Since last .year 2012 Condor flies 4 days a week Frankfurt direct to Anchorage (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday)

According to their schedule, the Sunday flight FRA-ANC stops in YXY (Whitehorse, Yukon)

mjoelnir · Thu May 02, 2013 9:46 pm

Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 23):
Didn't NW once operate FRA-DTW (3616 nm) with the 757? That's almost as far as KEF-SFO.

Icelandair likes to take a full load, 178 pax and belly freight.

DrColenzo · Fri May 03, 2013 9:24 am

Quoting mjoelnir (Reply 26):
Icelandair likes to take a full load, 178 pax and belly freight.

I was wondering about the belly freight and whether that would be a revenue earner on the route, too, I know that shellfish is a huge earner for Scotland to southern Europe, I wonder if Alaska via Iceland would be the same?

Also, completely off topic, during the course of this thread my wife went into labour and we now have a love baby girl, born last night and weighing 6 pounds, five ounces

mjoelnir · Fri May 03, 2013 12:26 pm

Quoting DrColenzo (Reply 27):
Quoting mjoelnir (Reply 26):
Icelandair likes to take a full load, 178 pax and belly freight.

I was wondering about the belly freight and whether that would be a revenue earner on the route, too, I know that shellfish is a huge earner for Scotland to southern Europe, I wonder if Alaska via Iceland would be the same?

Also, completely off topic, during the course of this thread my wife went into labour and we now have a love baby girl, born last night and weighing 6 pounds, five ounces

Congratulations to your wife.

The belly freight is important for Icelandair.
Apart from belly freight to Europe, they have a daily cargo flight to East Midlands and Liege, sometime one frame doing both, sometimes two frames, one for each.
They also have a cargo flight to JFK not daily but on most days but still the passenger flights take as much belly freight as possible.
A big part of this cargo is fresh fish.

jr · Sat May 04, 2013 5:30 am

Just ran a quick search on the iceland air website. Looks like flights go into Anchorage on Sunday and Wednesday and depart on Monday and Thursday. Almost a full 24 hours on the ground - guess the same crew flies the aircraft back.

FI 679: Departs KEF 5:10 pm
Arrives ANC 4:20 pm

FI: 678: Departs ANC 3:15 pm
Arrives KEF 6:30 am.

Interesting... KEF-ANC is an "arrive before you leave" flight

Anything else odd ball or interesting going on in ANC this summer?

woodsboy · Sat May 04, 2013 5:54 am

Alaska has the best seafood in N America, there would be zero reason to bring seafood from the Atlantic to AK, there is no market for farmed (most of Atlantic seafood) fish in AK. Again, the reason for this flight is tourists, not business ties or fish.

mjoelnir · Sat May 04, 2013 6:13 am

Quoting woodsboy (Reply 30):
Alaska has the best seafood in N America, there would be zero reason to bring seafood from the Atlantic to AK, there is no market for farmed (most of Atlantic seafood) fish in AK. Again, the reason for this flight is tourists, not business ties or fish.

Think of seafood from Alaska to Europe and equipment to Alaska.
A lot of the processing equipment (including spare parts) for fish processing comes from Europe.

Think of business contacts and technical experts as passengers in both directions.

I do not discount tourists.

mjoelnir · Mon May 06, 2013 3:00 pm

We have delegation from Alaska in town (Reykjavik).

Commissioner Susan K. Bell, Department of Commerce
Steven Hatter, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Transportation
Andrew Halcro, President of Anchorage Chamber of Commerce
Julie Saupe, President of Visit Anchorage
Rick Rogers, Executive Director, Resource Development Council

I think that the composition of the group shoes that it is not only about tourists but also about commerce.

http://www.islandsstofa.is/files/biographies-of-alaska-delegation.pdf

GBerg · Wed May 15, 2013 7:08 pm

Icelandair Boeing 757 200 flight 679 left keflavik for Anchorage at 17:21. So it´s on

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/ICE679

Viscount724 · Wed May 15, 2013 10:28 pm

Related JNU newspaper article:
http://juneauempire.com/state/2013-0...ervice-anc-begins-wed#.UZQLUUorjHQ

G500 · Thu May 16, 2013 7:04 am

That flightaware track sure in North, is way up there.

any photos of the 757 in ANC??

What was the load like?

Viscount724 · Fri May 17, 2013 12:34 am

Quoting g500 (Reply 35):
any photos of the 757 in ANC??

Video of the inaugural flight landing ANC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGXqIkxKXPg

FlyASAGuy2005 · Fri May 17, 2013 2:44 am

The 757 is an amazing machine...

atct · Fri May 17, 2013 8:33 pm

Quoting YULWinterSkies (Reply 22):
I do not know who flies NRT-ANC,

Japan Air flies it under a charter service in the summer. I believe its once a week with a 767-300. Its a pure charter and not bookable by those of us up here in Alaska.

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