Icelandair aims to work fleet harder in 2025 and return to profit

Icelandair is guiding for capacity growth of around 8% in 2025 based on a flat fleet size, amid a continued push for efficiencies after a loss-making in 2024. Outlining its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on 31 January, the Keflavik-based carrier says it plans to operate 42 aircraft during its summer peak this year, as it did in 2024, but still grow its capacity. That reflects a focus on what CE Bogi Nils Bogason describes as better “resource utilisation” and recovery from the dampening effect on passenger demand of seismic activity in Iceland last year. Capacity growth in the first quarter of 2025 will largely be driven by the carrier regaining ground lost amid the seismic activty in 2024, Bogason says. Growth will then be focused outside the peak travel months of July and August, he explains, with Icelandair planning to begin operating its second bank of connecting flights in April this year, rather than in May, and to extend its operation further into September. In the quieter fourth quarter of the year, growth will be driven by Icelandair tapping “new opportunities” created by its Airbus A321LRs, Bogason says.<br/>