Feedback on Icelandair business class

[PageTwo]

Does anyone have experience or feedback on Icelandair's business class? I'm in the process of booking a trip to Germany in the fall and google flights shows them at the top of the list, a good $500 less expensive than other airlines (Lufthansa, Delta, etc.).

I want to "BTD" a little and book business class. I noticed that in the flight details, the seats say "standard recliner seat" as opposed to "lie flat" with the other airlines. Not that I necessarily want to lie flat but it made me wonder about their overall service.

Appreciate any thoughts!

 

[braumeister]

Does anyone have experience or feedback on Icelandair's business class?

We used it a few years ago. Not the luxurious flat seats, but definitely nice ones, and the food is excellent. And if you can use the Saga lounge at the Reykjavik airport, it's one of the nicest ones anywhere and the food they serve in the lounge is nothing short of incredible.

 

[MRG]

I don't know. We're flying Denver to Reykjavik at the end of July in Icelandair business so I guess I'll find out.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I haven't flown them yet, but I've researched Icelandair a few times. In addition to visiting Iceland, I'm interested in using it as a stop to shorten the flight onward to Europe. Their ticketing that permits a multi-day layover on the island is attractive to me.

Here is a recent video comparing business to economy class. Obviously, there will be differences based on the particular plane and it's age. But from what I've seen, business class is more like business class on Domestic US flights. Nice comfortable seats, but not the fully reclining pods of many long haul overseas airline flights. Since I rarely can sleep on any flight, I feel these seats would be fine for me for a longer flight. But for me, I would likely be taking Boston or New York to Reykjavik, so not super long durations.

https://youtu.be/6XlmTxa2iI0

 

[PageTwo]

Thanks all for your comments. And Pirate, that video was illuminating. My flight is from Seattle so quite a bit longer.... thinking I'll splurge for the extra $500 with Lufthansa, this is BTD after all!

 

[PaunchyPirate]

Thanks all for your comments. And Pirate, that video was illuminating. My flight is from Seattle so quite a bit longer.... thinking I'll splurge for the extra $500 with Lufthansa, this is BTD after all!

Agreed. For your distance, I’d gladly pay $500 more for a better seat. BTD!

 

[Happyras]

Thanks all for your comments. And Pirate, that video was illuminating. My flight is from Seattle so quite a bit longer.... thinking I'll splurge for the extra $500 with Lufthansa, this is BTD after all!

We booked flights for August to KEF and then on to AMS. We are taking a cruise from AMS RT. The cruise line would not do the layover in KEF so we had to book RT SEA to KEF with the cruise to get "first" class at their "30% sale price". Since we booked last Oct, the fare was pretty good (that's Norwegian for F'd up), 3 of us $2100 pp plus I had to book RT KEF to AMS to catch the cruise and paid about $600 pp for Saga Premium.

Seatguru.com is my source for checking specific flights/dates to see what seats are being offered and which ones are no bueno.

Since the flight from SEA to KEF is not more than 8 hours direct, I figured it was worth the domestic type seat to do the layover in KEF a few days. The flight KEF to AMS is about 2 hours+. Normally we only fly real Business class to Europe.

I am pretty certain the coach seats are worse than Alaska coach seats, so I would definitely choose Saga Premium. So, for us with the layover we paid about $2800 pp total. The bonus was we get miles credit on Alaska by flying Iceland Air.

Had we chosen to fly on Delta KLM or United RT AMS, our Business class would have been over $3500 pp at that time. Recently I was seeing this had gone way up towards the $5000 pp rate.

I might recommend if you are flying to Germany, check out Condor. We flew Condor Business RT FRA SEA in Business and it was just great with direct flights and cheaper than others. We even used Alaska miles for a good price. BA is much easier to book, but they get you on taxes flying through LHR.

 

[MRG]

Thanks all for your comments. And Pirate, that video was illuminating. My flight is from Seattle so quite a bit longer.... thinking I'll splurge for the extra $500 with Lufthansa, this is BTD after all!

Good choice. Our flight from Denver to Reykjavik was fine but it's not business class you can sleep on. The sadistic person who designed the sad little foot pedals instead of a normal foot rest should be tried and punished by having to use this thing. Zero sleep was had.

 

[Happyras]

So we leave in a few weeks from SEA to KEF in Saga Premium. When I look at it now, the flight from Seattle is only 7.5 hours. When we fly to Mexico or the east coast, it is generally a 6 hour direct flight, or 8 hours with connections and we fly first class. Basically the same seats in domestic first as Iceland Air. Normally, we fly Business on any international trip that offers it, so this is a test I guess. When I W##K'd, I always flew Business to sleep so I could land and work OK. I will update after our flight, if this was a good idea, but we really are looking forward to the layover in Iceland prior to our Europe cruise to the Russian border countries.