Icelandair vs PLAY airlines is the first real decision of an Iceland trip, and it changes more than the price on the search page. Both land you at Keflavík, both are Icelandic, and both put you about 45 minutes from Reykjavík with a rental car waiting. The difference is what the fare covers, how wide the route map is, and what happens on the day a storm parks itself over the North Atlantic. Here is how the two actually compare after a lot of flights on both.
Icelandair is a legacy-style carrier with a proper transatlantic network, checked-bag allowance on most fare types, seat selection included at the higher tiers, and a real rebooking machine behind it. PLAY is ultra-low-cost: cheap base fare, everything else is an add-on, and a thinner safety net if your flight cancels.
Prices move a lot by season. Shoulder months are usually the sweet spot, July and August the worst. Start with a broad compare flights to Keflavík search before you commit to either airline.
Icelandair sells tiered fares. The cheapest tier is roughly hand luggage plus a personal item, with seat selection and checked bags paid separately. Step up one tier and you typically get a checked bag, standard seat choice and changes for a fee. The top economy tier and the premium cabin add more bags, better seats and flexible changes. Meals are not free in economy, but water and a hot drink are, and every seat has a screen with the free entertainment library.
PLAY unbundles almost everything. The base fare buys a seat and a small personal item that fits under the seat in front. A cabin bag in the overhead bin costs extra. Checked bags cost extra. Seat selection costs extra. There is no seatback screen, no free food, no loyalty programme worth planning around. Buy the bundles online during booking, never at the airport, where the same bag can cost two to three times as much.
Bag fees on both airlines are dynamic and vary by route and how far ahead you buy. As a planning range, expect roughly EUR 40-70 each way for a first checked bag on PLAY if you add it at booking, and more for a second. Icelandair charges a similar range when your fare does not already include a bag, which is why the cheapest Icelandair tier and a PLAY ticket often land close once you are done adding.
Two Iceland-specific notes. First, PLAY enforces cabin bag size at the gate. It is not theatre, they measure. Second, if you are renting camping gear or bringing a proper down jacket and boots, you are checking a bag either way. Ring Road travellers rarely fly hand-luggage only in winter.
Sports gear, camera cases and child seats each have their own rules. If you are travelling with a toddler, check whether it is cheaper to rent the seat with your rental car than to fly one across the Atlantic.
Both fly narrowbody aircraft across the Atlantic, so nobody is getting a widebody experience. Icelandair economy sits in the usual 30-32 inch pitch band and has seatback entertainment plus USB power. Their premium cabin is a genuine step up with wider seats and better service, and it prices well below transatlantic business on other carriers.
PLAY runs a dense single-class Airbus layout, generally 28-30 inches of pitch depending on row. It is fine for 3 hours from London or Copenhagen. From the US East Coast at 5.5-6 hours it is tolerable if you pay for an exit row or bulkhead. From the West Coast it is a long night in a tight seat, and that is worth pricing into the decision.
Flight times to know: Reykjavík is roughly 3 hours from London, 3.5 from Berlin or Paris, 3 from Copenhagen, 5.5-6 from New York or Boston, 6.5 from Washington or Toronto, and 7-8 from Seattle. Eastbound overnight flights land in the morning, which is why so many people go straight from KEF to the Blue Lagoon, 20 minutes away, before check-in time.
Icelandair has the deeper North American map: multiple gateways on the East Coast and in the Midwest, plus West Coast and Canadian service, alongside a broad European network. PLAY leans European, with a growing but narrower transatlantic side and a strategy built on connecting cheap Europe-to-North-America traffic through Keflavík.
Both networks shift by season, with more destinations and higher frequency in summer and a trimmed schedule in winter. Do not trust any route list, including this one, as current. Check live.
This is Icelandair's best trick. On a transatlantic itinerary you can stop in Iceland for up to about a week at no extra airfare, then continue to your final destination. Europe to North America, or the reverse, with an Iceland trip inserted for the price of the through ticket.
Seven days is also the realistic minimum for the full Ring Road, which is about 1,322 km, fully paved, and slower than the distance suggests once you start stopping. A week-long stopover maps almost exactly onto a 7-day Ring Road itinerary. If your trip was always going to be Europe plus Iceland, the stopover often makes Icelandair cheaper overall than a separate PLAY ticket, even when the individual fares look worse.
PLAY has no equivalent free stopover benefit. Its connecting product is about low total price, not about giving you Iceland for free along the way.
Iceland gets serious weather. Winter storms delay flights and close roads, sometimes for a day. That is not an airline problem, it is a North Atlantic problem, and both carriers deal with it. The difference is recovery capacity.
Icelandair has more daily frequencies, more aircraft, and interline agreements, so a cancellation usually means a rebooking onto another flight within a day. PLAY has a smaller fleet and fewer rotations. If your PLAY flight cancels on a route it operates a few times a week, the next seat may be two or three days out. EU261-style compensation rules apply to both for flights from and, in many cases, to the EU/EEA, which covers Iceland, but compensation does not put you on a plane.
Practical planning: never book a same-day onward connection on a separate ticket, especially in winter. Give yourself a night in Reykjavík at each end. Check vedur.is for weather and road.is (umferdin.is) for road status every morning of the loop, and browse where to stay near the airport for the last night so an early departure is not a 5 a.m. drive across the Reykjanes peninsula.
Keflavík is the international airport, about 50 km and 45-50 minutes from Reykjavík. The small city airport, RKV, is domestic and not where you will land. Rental desks are at or beside the terminal, and picking the car up on arrival is almost always the right call for a Ring Road trip.
Two things Iceland will not bend on. It is effectively card-only, so carry a card everywhere including remote fuel stops, and rental desks require a credit card in the driver's name for the deposit hold. A debit card will get you turned away. Sort this before you fly, not at the counter at 6 a.m.
Compare Keflavík airport car rental rates against downtown pickup, and book gravel and sand-and-ash protection if your dates fall in windy season. The Blue Lagoon sits about 20 minutes from KEF, between the airport and the city, which makes it the natural first or last stop of the trip. From there the rest of the plan comes together with activities and the full set of all guides.
On the base fare, usually yes, sometimes dramatically. Once you add a cabin bag, a checked bag and a seat, the gap often narrows to EUR 30-60 each way. Price both with the same bags attached before deciding, and check a broad search like New York to Keflavík or London to Keflavík on your exact dates, since seasonality moves prices more than the airline choice does.
Yes. PLAY operates modern Airbus A320-family aircraft under EASA and Icelandic regulation, the same safety framework as any European carrier. Ultra-low-cost refers to what the fare includes and how thin the schedule is, not to safety standards.
No. The stopover of up to about a week at no extra airfare on transatlantic itineraries is an Icelandair benefit. If your trip is Europe plus Iceland or North America plus Iceland, run the numbers with the Icelandair stopover included, since it can make the total cheaper than a separate low-cost ticket.
Icelandair, mostly for the recovery network. Winter storms close roads and delay flights, and more daily frequencies mean a faster rebooking if yours cancels. Either way, build a buffer night at each end, never book a separate same-day onward ticket, and check vedur.is and road.is every morning.
For the full 1,322 km loop, a car is the practical answer. It is fully paved and easy to drive, but the stops are spread out and public transport does not serve them. Pick the car up at Keflavík on arrival, bring a credit card in the driver's name for the deposit hold, and remember Iceland is effectively card-only everywhere.
About 50 km, or 45-50 minutes by car. Reykjavík's own airport, RKV, is a small domestic field and not where international flights land. The Blue Lagoon sits roughly 20 minutes from KEF on the way into town, which is why it works so well as a first or last stop.