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“We will be adding in one more Q200 aircraft to our fleet by the beginning of next year.
This addition will enable us to improve frequency and reliability,” says Arni Gunnarsson,
Managing Director, Air Iceland Connect.
More regional Vestnorden routes
”The changes in our fleet to three Bombardier Q 400 and two
Q 200, which we implemented last year, have been very well
received by our passengers.
They like the comfort and the higher speed of the Q400 compared
to the older Fokker 50. The high speed aircraft has given us
the option of expanding our routenetwork further with UK
destinations.
We are indeed satisfied with the Q400. Customers like them a
lot and depending on our further development we could foresee
more aircrafts coming into our fleet.
Regarding the Q200, which are unique in its short field runway
performance, we will be adding in one more aircraft of that type
to our fleet by the beginning of next year.
This addition will enable us to improve frequency and reliability
particularly on our Greenlandic destinations on the West Coast
i.e. Nuuk and Ilulissat,” says Arni Gunnarsson, Managing
Director, Air Iceland Connect.
“We are building up on the new route from Keflavik to Akureyri
which we started last spring. We have had very good response
to this new option of flying directly after arrival in Keflavík to
Akureyri. This new whole year operation opens up new possiblities
of connections with all arrivals and departures from Keflavík and
saves on travelling time particularely for European travellers who
now do not need an extra night in Reykjavík before departure.“
”You have changed your name to Air Iceland Connect. Why?
Where does the name come from? How has the name been received
by the customers?”
“We have so far used two names and that is confusing for
our customers. We therefore have decided to go for only one
international name Air Iceland (which we have been using for
over 20 years) with the addition of Connect which describes the
function of our operation.
”Is that the way development goes, saying goodbye to a local name
(Flugfélag Íslands) and switching to a more international English
name?”
“We thought about many options, but with building on the
name which we have already been using and keeping Iceland
in our name we find that we have a strong brand to built on.“
”The new name could be interpreted as if you would like to stand
more on your own compared to Icelandair?"
”No it is actually not thought in that way. With our new
destinations in the UK, which are being market by Icelandair,
we have more cooperation with Icelandair than ever before and
we do plan on expanding the cooperation even further.”
”You are writing that Air Iceland has a new name and a new
vision. What is the new vision?”
”Our Vision is to give our customers an „Inspirational Icelandic
Travel Adventure. “
Our route network truly offer destinations which are
inspirational and offer adventure at the same time we are
focusing on our routes being Icelandic.
”We have implemented the ISO14001 environmental
certification which we are very proud of and we are also part of
the icelandic environmental system Vakinn, so we do take our
environmental responsibilities seriously in all our operation.”
”How is Air Iceland Connect relative to other airlines and how
far have you reached?”
”We have not benchmarked us related to others but as Nature
is the main attraction for tourist arriving to Iceland it is in our
gens to be concerned about our „foot print“ and how we can
reduce that as much as possible.”
“How many of Air Iceland Connects customers are tourists and
business?”
”On our domestic routes approximately 40% are business
travelers, but on our internationals routes the leisure traffic is
dominant with around 80%,” says Arni Gunnarsson.
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