Iceland’s newest airline, PLAY, might be starting off small, but it’s got big plans for the future. In 2021, it plans to double its fleet to six A320 family aircraft, with a view to launching service to North America in the first half of the year. Destinations are still under wraps, but the CEO, Birgir Jonsson, has dropped some strong hints.
Doubling the fleet
Yesterday, PLAY shared photos of its second A321neo in the paint shop, ahead of its delivery to the airline. Although the brand-new carrier is starting slowly, with just one aircraft at present, within a few weeks, it will have three.
For the rest of this year, PLAY will fly to key destinations in Europe. But beyond 2021, the plan is to go even further, doubling the size of its fleet and opening new destinations on the other side of the Atlantic. Speaking exclusively to Simple Flying, PLAY’s CEO Birgir Jonsson said,
“Our plan is to have these three aircraft until next spring, and then we will add three more aircraft from the 320 family. We will launch the US operation – the model is simply to connect the East Coast of the US and Canada to select cities in Europe. That’s something that we will see happening, I would say, March, April, May.”
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Where will it go?
The strategic local of PLAY’s home in Iceland gives it the ability to connect the US and Europe in a highly efficient manner. It’s a model that worked well for WOW Air for a while until rapid growth proved to be its ultimate downfall. While PLAY’s CEO wasn’t keen to confirm his North America plans, he noted that it didn’t take a genius to figure out what’s on his hit list,
“We haven’t published or even finalised our final list, but we plan to launch the…