For the first time in more than two years, a jet lifted off from Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Thursday evening headed out over the Atlantic Ocean toward Europe.
About 140 passengers were aboard Icelandair Flight 820 for the six-hour trip to Keflavik, the airport outside Iceland’s capital Reykjavik. There, some would catch connecting flights to Europe, while others would collect their bags and begin exploring the island near the Arctic Circle created by volcanoes and shaped by glaciers.
The new flight is a milestone in the recovery of air travel from RDU, where demand for tickets dropped 96% in the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. All international flights from the Triangle, including daily nonstops to London and Paris, were suspended in 2020.
The Icelandair Boeing 737 Max 8 landed shortly after 7 p.m. and received a water cannon salute from RDU’s fire trucks as it approached the gate in Terminal 2. Among those on board was Icelandair president and CEO Bogi Nils Bogason, making his first trip to North Carolina.
“It’s always a special occasion to have an inaugural flight, but especially now after two years of restrictions and COVID challenges,” Bogason said in an interview as RDU passengers waited to board. “So it is a great pleasure to do this now.”
With fewer residents than Raleigh, Iceland has an airline that serves more than 40 cities in North America and Europe through its hub in the North Atlantic.
Iceland is the destination for about half of the airline’s customers.
Dalia Brahmi of Carrboro was taking Thursday’s inaugural flight to meet a friend from Copenhagen, Denmark, for a week of hiking and sightseeing on the island. The direct flight was helpful, Brahmi said, but the big draw is Iceland’s beauty.
“A colleague who has been there said it was transformational,” said Brahmi, a family physician with UNC’s Gillings School of Public Health. “That’s what it’s about, spending time in beautiful places with people who are important to you.”
The other half of Icelandair’s passengers are like Joseph Sgherza of Beaufort. Sgherza, CEO of Integrum Scientific, a company that helps countries deal with infectious diseases, was on his way to Ukraine and nearby Georgia to work with scientists. Sgherza was flying to Warsaw, Poland, for the trip into Ukraine, and said he was pleasantly surprised to find the Icelandair connection through Reykjavik to Amsterdam.
“This is a happy accident,” he said, of being on the inaugural flight. “This is such a convenient flight for us.”
On his way home to North Carolina, Sgherza said he planned to relax and see some of Iceland during a two-day layover.
Service is seasonal for now
RDU began courting Icelandair five years ago, said airport president Michael Landguth, but talks were suspended during the pandemic. Bogason said the airline was attracted to the Triangle because of its growth and demographics.
“This is a market that we believe is similar to markets that we have been serving in the U.S. and that have been going quite well for us, like Boston, Denver and Seattle,” he said.
Icelandair will make four roundtrips a week between RDU and Reykjavik from now through the end of October. Bogason said if business is good the airline will expand the service over time.
“Quite often when we start a new destination, especially in North America, we start on a seasonal basis,” he said. “But our strategy is always — and the plan is — to extend the season gradually, and hopefully in a few years time it will be a whole-year service.”
There were about 20 empty seats on Thursday’s flight to Reykjavik, which is good for an inaugural run, said airline spokesman Michael Raucheisen. Overall, Raucheisen said, Icelandair is pleased with ticket sales from RDU.
“We can pretty much say that sales have been on par with an already-established gateway,” he said. “So basically it’s as if we’ve been flying from Raleigh all along, which is a really great and positive thing to see in a new market.”
RDU trying to lure new air service
RDU helped persuade Icelandair to come to the Triangle with an incentive program designed to recruit more international flights. The program, begun last fall, waived several airline fees, up to $250,000 a year per route for two years, and provided an additional $25,000 to promote a new flight.
The incentives applied to nonstop flights of at least 1,611 miles, and Icelandair was the only taker.
Landguth said that offer is expiring but that RDU will come up with a new incentive program to try to draw new flights or new airlines. He said airport officials meet with air carriers about every six months and that interest in the Triangle is growing.
“We’re getting more requests from carriers all over the world and here domestically than we’ve ever had before,” he said. “So the opportunity is fantastic. Now what we need to do is figure out how we can capitalize on that.”
The Iceland flight becomes the first new international route added at RDU since 2019, when Air Canada launched service to Montreal. The Montreal flight will resume June 1, followed by American’s daily flights to London on June 3 and Delta’s service to Paris in early August.
Icelandair officially becomes RDU’s 12th airline. Startup budget airline Avelo will become the 13th when it begins flying nonstop between the Triangle and New Haven, Connecticut, on May 26.
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