Startup Icelandic air carrier makes a play in the tough, low-cost transatlantic market

Startup low-fare Icelandic airline Play announced new transatlantic service out of a third US airport, Stewart International in New Windsor, New York, to begin June 9. (Stewart lies about 65 miles north of New York City.) Play, which launched last July with nonstops from Reykjavik, Iceland, to London’s Stansted Airport, is the latest low-fare airline to attempt to make heavily discounted service across the Atlantic work. Play’s immediate Icelandic forebear, Wow Air, went bankrupt in 2019 after starting long-haul services to the US West Coast and India. Denmark’s Primera Air faced a similar fate in 2018. Low-cost Norway-based competitor Norwegian, meanwhile, abandoned long-haul intercontinental operations in January 2021 in order to focus on European and Middle Eastern routes. Now, Play will debut flights from the US to Reykjavik — and onward from there to 22 other European cities — on April 20 with flights from Baltimore/Washington International Airport, followed by Boston Logan starting May 11 using narrow-body Airbus A320neo and A321neo planes. The carrier is promoting the new connecting services to Europe with fares as low as $109 one-way. Story features interview with Play CEO Birgir Jonsson — formerly with Wow Air himself — on what it’s like to start an airline amid a pandemic and how Play plans to succeed where others have failed.<br/>