Icelandair: Record load factor in October

Icelandair's load factor in October was 86.1%, the highest ever recorded for the month. The Company carried 439 thousand passengers, 5% fewer than in October last year. Passenger distribution was as follows: 36% traveled to Iceland, 21% from Iceland, 38% were connecting passengers, and 5% traveled within Iceland. The number of passengers traveling to Iceland decreased by 8% year-on-year and passengers traveling from Iceland by 2%. Connecting passengers decreased by 6%, while domestic passengers increased by 3%.

Capacity, measured in available seat kilometers, decreased by 7% year-on-year. On-time performance was 84.5%, improving by 3.2 percentage points between years.

Sold block hours in leasing operations increased by 12% and freight, measured in freight ton kilometers, increased by 4% year-on-year.

CO₂ emissions per operational ton kilometer increased by 1% between years. The increase was mainly due to weather in Iceland, and unfavorable winds that required fuel stops on the way to and from some destinations in the US, which is unusual.

Bogi Nils Bogason, Icelandair President and CEO:
"Icelandair's passenger numbers decreased slightly year-on-year, but as we have previously announced, we adjusted our capacity in response to significantly higher fuel prices, by reducing our schedule and accelerating the phase-out of older generations of aircraft. At the same time, we set a record load factor. In October, we launched flights to Tromsø, Norway, a new and exciting winter destination in our route network. We are proud of the two awards we received during the month: the Global SABRE Award for best PR campaign of the year, and the Environmental Award of the Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise (SA) for strong performance in reducing our impact on the environment and the climate.  This shows the efforts of the dedicated Icelandair team in constantly improving our operations, our service and our environmental performance."