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Icelandair is an Icelandic airline of Icelandair Group. It is Iceland's largest airline and has its main offices in Reykjavík. It operates services to 22 cities in 12 countries. Icelandair's hub is located at Keflavík International Airport.
History Icelandair traces its roots to the year 1937 when Flugfélag Akureyrar was founded in Akureyri on the north coast of Iceland. In 1943 the company moved its headquarters to Iceland's capital, Reykjavík, and changed its name to Flugfélag Íslands. A company called Loftleiðir was formed by three pilots in 1944. Initially Loftleiðir and Flugfélag Íslands concentrated on Icelandic domestic air services. However, in 1945 Flugfélag Íslands made its first international flights to Scotland and Denmark. Loftleidir began international operations in 1947, and its pioneering low-fare services across the North-Atlantic commenced in 1953. At the time IATA determined the fares for airlines flying between Europe and North-America and all airlines charged the same amount. Loftleidir was not a part of IATA and could therefore determine its own fares. Because of this they were able to undercut all competing airlines. This made them a popular hub for travel between Europe and North-America. Flugfélag Íslands and Loftleiðir were merged in 1973 and the name Flugleiðir was adopted. It was decided that the company's English name would be Icelandair. The low-fares airline Iceland Express started competing with Icelandair on two routes in 2003, from Keflavík to Copenhagen, London in addition it now competes on routes to Stockholm, Berlin and Frankfurt. A large portion of the air traffic between the United States to Europe flies over Iceland. Iceland has become a transfer point for people travelling between the U.S. to Europe and vice versa. This accounts for much of the company's passenger traffic. Icelandair's stopover plan dates back to when Loftleidir started the plan in 1963 on its transatlantic flights at no extra cost. At the time Loftleidir was the only airline that did this and therefore pioneered sixth freedom rights. Destinations Icelandair transported over one and a half million passengers in 2005 (1,526,241). This is the largest number of passengers that the airline has transported in one year. The amount of passengers increased 14.5% from the previous year and since 1993 this amount has tripled. The airlines load factor was close to 78%. On average Icelandair operated 28 flights a day in 2005. (source: Icelandair 2005 Annual Report). Destinations served from Iceland: Europe
North America Fleet
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