Icelandair, for those who don’t follow closely the aviation world and industry, is quite the peculiar carrier. Its business model is somewhere in between serving the inbound leisure traffic and offering cheaper transatlantic crossing options between Europe and America with a short stopover in Reykjavik. Therefore passenger figures are highly volatile between high and low seasonalities. June 2026, however, is so far the month with the highest passenger traffic volume.
In this post:
- Almost 550K Passengers Carried in June 2026
- Benefiting Of Play Airlines’ Shutdown
- Transit Traffic Declining YoY in June
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Icelandair: Almost 550K Passengers Carried in June 2026
| Route Network | Jun 26 | Jun 25 | Chg (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Passengers: | 544,639 | 552,096 | -1% |
| ASK (million) | 1,932 | 2,036 | -5% |
| RPK (million) | 1,669 | 1,732 | -4% |
| Yield (US cents) | 10.64 | 9.87 | 8% |
| Load Factor | 86.5% | 85.1% | 1.4 ppt |
| OTP (Arrivals) | 84.9% | 86.8% | -1.9 ppt |
| Stage length (KM) | 3,040 | 3,119 | -3% |
June has been, so far, the busiest month of the year for Icelandair. The carrier welcomed aboard its flights 544,639 passengers.
That is the highest figure of the year-to-date, but it is also down compared to June of 2025 (1 year ago).
However, that’s not all negative. The reduction of passengers YoY by 1% is also pushed by the airline itself.
Icelandair reduced its ASK (Available Seats per Kilometer) by 5% which translated to a smaller RPK (Revenue Seats per Kilometer) of 4%.
In simpler terms that means that yield was up compared to last year. It jumped up from $9.87 (USD) in June 2025 to $10.64 in June 2026. That is an 8% increase.
Benefiting Of Play Airlines’ Shutdown
The increase in yield is a result of a varied playing field from 2025. The biggest change since 2025 is the shutdown of Play Airlines which was the other carrier based in Keflavík International Airport.
Low-cost carrier Play Airlines shut down in late 2025 leaving handing back the entire Icelandic aviation market to the flag carrier.
With Play out of the picture Icelandair has a green light to reducing capacity, increasing prices and therefore also increasing yields on key routes.
Something that if you look carefully you can spot is that the average sector length has shrunk too by 3%. It now sits just above 3,000km in a much optimal zone for the Icelandair narrow body fleet.
Transit Traffic Declining YoY in June
| Type of Passenger Traffic | 2026 | 2025 | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| To | 189,571 | 191,607 | -1% |
| From | 104,975 | 93,325 | 12% |
| Via | 225,562 | 245,071 | -8% |
| Within | 24,531 | 22,093 | 11% |
What stands out is the decline in transit traffic in the month of June 2026 over June 2025. Passengers flying Icelandair to cross the Atlantic are down but passengers traveling from and to Iceland for business and leisure are up making up for part of that lost traffic.