Here we go again 🙂 . This is a recap of my 2nd of 3 flights with IcelandAir that I booked on one $940 USD ticket. It basically ended up costing me $293.90 USD after my first flight was delayed and I applied for and received $646.10 USD as a result of EU Regulation 261/2004. Not bad for an EU law I didn’t know existed and 30 seconds of work 🙂 .
I detailed that entire saga below if you haven’t read that, but today I’m here to talk about the second leg of this trip, which was luckily much less drama filled.
Pre-Flight
Curiously, 24 hours before our flight, my Mom received an email saying to check in for our flight, but my Partner and I didn’t. Maybe they only email Business Class customers 😉 (that’s a joke). However, I went into Manage Booking and was able to check in there despite not hearing from IcelandAir that I could do so.
After I checked in, the email confirmation automatically added my boarding pass to my Google Wallet on my phone, which was cool. I love that I didn’t have to download another app to have the ticket digitally and I’d never seen it be automatically added before.
Flights Details
- When: October 2024
- Where: Reykjavík, Iceland (KEF) to Zürich, Switzerland (ZRH)
- Flight: FI568
- Flight Time: 3h 45m
- Seat: 14F
- Distance: 1638 mi
Reykjavík–Keflavík (KEF) Airport
A taxi dropped me, my Mom and my Partner off at KEF airport and we headed inside.
Check In
When we entered from the taxi drop off point, there was a long line of self check in kiosks and a bag drop in the distance. I also saw check in desks, but they said things like special assistance and families so we headed to the kiosks.
I clicked on a kiosk, selected “English” as my language, and then went through accepting that I don’t have anything dangerous and then selected “print bag tags and print boarding passes.” The kiosk then told me an assortment of ways I could enter my information.
I chose to scan my Google Wallet boarding pass and felt fancy about it 🙂 . I then entered the number of bags we were checking and it showed my bag allowance based on my ticket (nice touch!).
I printed the bag tags which included a handy visual instruction of how to put them on and said to keep the tag receipt with you. Easy! I also printed our boarding passes just in case (once again, I’m a bit neurotic 😉 ). I put my bag receipt on the back of my printed boarding pass. Finally, we were ready!
Bag Drop
We headed to the Bag Drop area. Curiously there seemed to be an entrance to it in front of those kiosks but when we approached, an employee said that we had to walk around the corner to get to the bag drop. Confusing, but ok and I’m glad someone was there to tell me so I didn’t waste time standing in the wrong line.
We went around the corner and there were more employees there to direct us (once again, nice touch). Their presence seemed to be a very good idea because many people seemed confused about where they were supposed to go (us included 🙂 ).
We entered the bag drop line and employees checked that we had bag tags on our bags already. The line moved super fast and we got to the front of the line almost instantly. More employees then directed us to a numbered bag drop station.
I put my 40L Backpack on the bag drop conveyor belt and (Spoiler!) I didn’t notice a small sticker at the bottom right of the conveyer belt that had a red line through a picture of a backpack. I then used a hand scanner (it’s nice that they have that!) to scan my bag tag and it said go find assistance. Uh oh.
Instead of dealing with that, I worked on checking my Partner and Mom’s bags in and theirs scanned no problem. After scanning the bag tag, the machine said to step back while it weighed and scanned the bags. Then there was a button that popped up to “Send bag.”
When we pressed “Send bag”, the conveyor belt took the bag. Once their bags were gone, I asked an employee what the deal was with mine.
It turns out that my regular sized backpack (in a country with backpacking and hiking focused tourism) is “odd sized luggage”, so I had to walk all the way back to the other side of the terminal to the odd sized baggage drop off area. This would have been good to know in an email or something since I imagine a lot of people leaving Iceland have hiking backpacks.
Odd Sized Baggage
So I weaved my way back to the other side of the terminal, past the kiosks we originally used. At the odd sized baggage drop off, there was one group in front of me unloading a lot of hiking backpacks, so I waited for a few minutes. When they left, I put my backpack on the conveyor belt and an employee scanned it when it got to the end of the belt. I then went up to the window and he said in English that I was good to go, so I left.
Security
Then we followed signs to “Security check.” It involved going up stairs or an escalator. There were then two lines, which weren’t very clear. The one on the left was for “fast lanes” which included my Mom since she was in Saga (IcelandAir Business Class). She went that way and my Partner and I continued in the right lane.
There were machines where you scanned your boarding pass to get through and that was the only security checkpoint. We then joined the main security line, which was really short and quick. There were a lot of open security lines to choose from so we walked to the right to lines with less people.
I then waited behind some tourists who were trying to get their water through security (or maybe it was vodka…) and the security officer was obviously not budging on that. I had assumed the security lane was a straight line, but this is actually a bin system so you can go in front of people that are being slow because you’re not working towards the front of the line.
The officer gestured me forward and around the water loving people, and I saw that there were bins under the conveyor belt. I took out my laptop and Kindle. The officer said to not put the Kindle on top of the laptop, but next to it in its own bin. Alrighty then.
I then asked if I needed to take my jacket off because I hadn’t seen that on any signs leading up to this point, and he said yes. So I did and I left my shoes on. I put my bag in a bin and pushed that bin and the one with my electronics onto the main conveyor belt and it went through. Overall I was through security and all of the above hullabaloo in a few minutes.
The Waiting Area
After the security check, I walked through a duty free area, which then opened into a waiting area with lots of shops and a TV with boarding information. The TV said that our gate would be announced 20 minutes before boarding started so we sat down to wait.
The seats in this waiting area were not very comfortable except for portions where the wood was next to each other. It’s made up of slats which I’m curious to know if they’re to prevent people from sleeping comfortably. That might be why I saw people sleeping on the floor instead…and I think that’s messed up 🙂 .
However, the seats do have outlets, which is nice. I got up to spend the Icelandic Króna that I got for parking and never had to use. I bought some random snacks and strangely, I had my only negative interaction in this airport. One of the 5 book shop cashiers yelled at people to hurry up in line. Not sure what that was about, but it was 6am so I allllmost get it. But kindness is free 🙂 .
We chilled there for a bit and then I noticed 10 minutes before it said our gate would be announced, that it started to list the terminal (C) and that it takes 10 minutes to walk there.
So we headed to terminal C and when we got there, the clock struck 20 minutes to boarding and the TVs started to show our gate number so we headed towards it.
The Gate
Our gate was downstairs, which we got to by using an escalator that starts when you step onto it (fancy!) However, the last restrooms before entering the plane were upstairs, so after getting my Mom and Partner situated, I headed back up there. However, there was a line because at least by our gate, there were only 3 stalls, but each had their own sink and fancy Dyson dryer so that was nice.
One thing I like about this airport is that there are “How are we doing?” buttons everywhere. I’m not sure how helpful those are, but I love pressing them when people are doing a good job.
So I headed back to my family and realized that it was good that we were one of the first people at the gate because there were very few seats. We relaxed and waited for boarding to start in 15 minutes.
THE JOURNEY
Boarding
At the exact boarding time, an FA announced that families and Saga seats could board so my Mom boarded.
Then the employee said “Economy?” as in all of it and gestured to the non-priority lane. So everyone lined up. There were no sections 🙂 .
When we got to the front of the line, we scanned our boarding passes and went through to another room. The employee then told us to completely fill the space and not form a line, so we did and then saw that we were all headed onto a bus. And hilariously my Mom was there too 🙂 .
They were waiting for the bus to fill up, which didn’t take long since the whole plane was boarding at once. IcelandAir’s free for all boarding system makes a lot more sense if this is how planes are boarded in Iceland.
The Flight
The bus then drove a little bit to the plane and we walked a few feet to stairs that go into the plane. The stairs were a little slippery because of rain so we were cautious while walking up them.
We settled into our seats and after an announcement, the TV said that entertainment would be starting shortly. The screen then said “Byrja” (Start) and then asked me to select my language after which I had to watch 4 minutes of ads. However, this screen flow made a lot more sense than the one on my first IcelandAir flight.
While I was watching those ads, the captain announced that there was a takeoff delay because there were lots of flights over Europe and we had to wait 18 minutes to push back. Alrighty – no worries.
After the ads on my TV were done, my entertainment system was open and I explored my options. We didn’t have a long flight so I used the helpful runtime indicators next to each movie title to determine what I had time for.
Also apparently if you start a movie that’s longer than the remaining flight time, the TV alerts you of that – that happened to my Partner. They didn’t realize he was just speed re-watching Dune 2 again 😉 .
I chose the trash that is Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire. When our short delay ended, we took off and made time back up in the air. A bit later FAs came around with a drink cart and I got a coffee.
Later the FAs came around with a cart to recycle our cups and about 2 hours into the flight, they came around with water. I finished my ridiculous movie, read a bit of my latest book and before I knew it we were landing.
Zürich (ZRH) Airport
We got off plan and headed to baggage claim.
Baggage Claim
When we arrived at Zürich baggage claim, we noticed that there was a screen above the carousel that said which flights were on which carousel and when the bags would arrive. Ours said 7 minutes, but bags started coming out in 3. Nice.
Then after a round of bags, the belt stopped. Uh oh 🙂 . However, the TV said they are still coming out and even had fun little icons. A short time later, more bags started coming out and ours arrived.
However, when I picked up my backpack, I noticed that it was quite wet, even the inside. Luckily I was able to dry it all out, but I found that super weird since it’s never happened to me before, even when traveling in rain and snow storms.
Also, the fact that they made me put my backpack in a specific place for backpacks made me think they would care for them as well as normal luggage, but maybe not. Or maybe something went wrong. But that was disappointing.
Transit
Anyway, we then opened the Uber app and it had instructions of where to go for pick up with pictures, but hilariously, we still couldn’t figure it out 🙂 . We walked around as confused tourists until we just gave up and grabbed a taxi instead after asking if they took credit cards (they did). Then the taxi driver asked where we were going and asked me to put it in his Google Maps app on his phone – that’s new.
The meter was running and we hit a lot of traffic and I was just reminded of why I much prefer ride sharing apps to taxis – I prefer knowing what I will pay upfront (even if it’s higher) instead of watching dollars tick higher and higher while sitting in traffic. It’s unnecessarily stressful to me for some reason. But whatever – we had made it to Switzerland and it was time for my Partner to experience Continental Europe for the first time. Let’s do this!
THE REVIEW
So that’s what happened, but now let’s get into the actual review and what I thought of the experience 🙂 .
Customer Service
Overall the customer service we experienced on this IcelandAir flight was lovely. All the IcelandAir employees in the airport were first of all everywhere, which I appreciated since not all of their processes were very clear. They were also all super kind and helpful.
The FAs were nice and efficient and everything went well except for my wet backpack, which I’m still puzzled by.
Seat
Interestingly, this seat looked even more spacious than the one we had on our last IcelandAir flight, which was on a larger plane. I had plenty of room and was very comfortable.
One thing to note however is that on this configuration of plane, it looks like the TV box is under the middle seat so there’s less legroom there, but other seats had a huge amount of room under them.
Food
The ‘food’ on this flight was once again just drinks and food for purchase, but the drinks we received were good and plentiful. They were very diligent that we didn’t get dehydrated, which I appreciated.
In-Flight Entertainment
I was very happy with the entertainment system on this plane. Strangely, the TV was bigger than the TV on the larger plane that we had when we flew to Iceland. The TV process also worked properly instead of getting stuck on ads I couldn’t skip (or maybe it was user error…. 😉 ).
I also didn’t have any issues with the headphone jack on this plane like I did on the last one. There were also enough things to watch to entertain me on this flight.
CONCLUSION
And that was my experience on flight 2/3 of this one IcelandAir ticket. After a challenging first flight experience, this one was smooth sailing by comparison and I was looking forward to flying IcelandAir for our third flight with them with the caveat that I would make sure all my water sensitive items are carefully packed (but Spoiler: that won’t be needed 😉 ). Overall I’m still happy flying IcelandAir.
What’s an airline that’s surprised you lately?
Hi Purple! been following your posts for a while but have never commented but wanted to affirm what you said about IcelandAir customer service. I got very sick on one of their flights once (I was taking the trip at the very stressful and exhausting time and had not taken care of myself well enough prior to the flight) and they couldn’t have been nicer to me, getting me water and crackers and making sure i got off the flight ok. I was so grateful and will always recommend them.
Oh wow – thank you for sharing your experience!
Even though I usually get my mobile boarding pass during online check-in, I always print it out at the airport too so that I can use it for scrapbooking. Have some from even 10 years ago when I first started scrapbooking :O
That’s a lovely idea 🙂 . That scrapbook sounds awesome.
I love how you covered everything from the comfort of the seats to the efficiency of the boarding process. Icelandair seems like a solid choice for short international hops, especially with the value they offer. Managing travel expenses can get tricky, though—I’ve found tools like Paywint helpful for keeping everything streamlined while on the go. Your post makes me want to add Iceland to my travel list even sooner. Thanks for sharing such a clear breakdown!