Trip Report: Flying to JetBlue’s First Essential Air Service Community
Earlier this year, JetBlue won the Essential Air Service (EAS) contract for the community of Presque Isle, Maine, continuing the…
This airline is trying to brand itself as the fun and affordable way to travel to Iceland.
PLAY Airlines is an Icelandic-based budget carrier that fits into the category of low-frills and charges passengers for carry-on bags along with seat assignments, among other items. But, for those passengers that travel light and don’t need much, it can be a cheaper way to travel to a country that is known for being on the expensive side.
It is a relatively new airline, created from the remains and executives of WOW Air, another Icelandic-budget carrier that grew too fast and quick before going belly up. Now, with new executives, the company is modestly expanding with five destinations currently in North America and roughly 30 in Europe.
I arrived at the airport way earlier than I needed to the day of the trip, as I came off a different airline from a connecting city many hours before my PLAY flight which was scheduled to leave at 7:15 p.m. The airline does offer online check-in but you cannot use these online boarding passes or ones printed from home to board the aircraft, so I figured I would leave the secure area where I arrived to go to the ticket counter to get a printed boarding pass.
The airline operates out of the E gates at Boston Logan, and their counter opened about three hours before the scheduled departure time. It’s also interesting to point out that they don’t participate in the TSA Pre-Check program so definitely make sure to get there with plenty of time.
As PLAY is a budget carrier, you do need to pay for stuff like seat selections, drinks, snacks, and especially carry-on bags. They tagged all of the carry-on bags for the overhead with white tags that said approved.
Before boarding, agents went around the area to make sure that nobody had a larger bag without an approved tag on it, and if there was anything they thought was even slightly larger than their dimensions, they would make people use the bag sizer to test it. This isn’t uncommon as carriers in the United States like Spirit, Allegiant, and Frontier do similar things, along with European carriers Ryanair and Easyjet.
The aircraft for the flight was TF-PPE, an Airbus A320neo that was delivered directly to the airline in November of 2022. And of course, sported the airline’s noticeable bright red livery and had 180 seats in an all-economy class configuration.
For this flight, we used gate E4, which is right near the beginning of the terminal. With the E gates, every single one of the gates is common use, meaning airlines can be interchangeable between them. On the day of this flight, we had a Delta flight to Paris and a Porter flight to Toronto boarding at nearly the same time, so it got slightly confusing, but the large signage helped.
PLAY had an interesting boarding process; the first boarding group was priority passengers along with those who needed extra time getting down to the jetbridge. The second boarding group was everyone else onboard the aircraft. As mentioned, the aircraft was arranged with 180 seats in all economy, although on its A320neo aircraft, the first two rows are extra legroom seats along with the exit rows.
Once on board, I took my seat in 2F which was a window in the previously mentioned extra legroom section of the aircraft. The captain made an announcement about going into Keflavik, which is an interesting aspect to note, as all of the boarding passes as well as the departure monitors said Reykjavik.
This is because Reykjavik is the city name that most tourists and outsiders recognize as it is the biggest city in the country as well as the capital. However, the airport is technically located in Keflavik, which is about an hour west of Reykjavik. The names Keflavik and Reykjavik are used interchangeably for the international airport for airlines.
I did also get lucky as I had nobody sitting in the aisle or middle seat next to me for this flight up to Iceland. Pushback as well as takeoff were normal and we took to the skies on time north towards ReykjavÃk as the sun went below the horizon over the Boston skyline and harbor.
This flight is the shortest distance between the United States and Iceland at only 2,413 miles and is shorter than flying from coast to coast in the United States, not just for this airline but all of the airlines that operate between these two countries.
Once in the air, I connected my phone to the aircraft’s Wi-Fi, which can’t be used for streaming or internet and is predominantly used for ordering from the airline onboard bistro, looking at the interactive route map, playing some games, or doing a survey. Even as we got away from the coastline the map still worked, as well as did the couple of games they had on there.
There was also a small brochure in the seatback pocket for duty-free items, as well as some PLAY-themed items like playing cards and a scale model of their very first aircraft: TF-PEW.
If you did download TV or movies on your phone or tablet, the airline did provide a device holder in the back of the seatback pockets, as well as four USB ports per every three seats allowing for plenty of devices to be charged along the way.
About 30 minutes after takeoff, I decided to try and get some sleep as this was a short redeye flight and we would be landing in about four hours or so.
Going into Iceland we were predominantly overwater and it was still really early in the morning so there wasn’t much to be seen on the approach until just before landing.
We landed at ReykjavÃk/Keflavik just before 4 a.m. local time after exactly 4.5 hours of flight time, meaning we had landed about 45 minutes early, and with little to no traffic moving around the airport other than us, it was a super quick taxi to the gate.
The airline’s North American arrival bank into Iceland is super early in the morning, with arrivals from their four-to-five destination in North America coming in between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. And with Icelandair’s morning arrival bank from North America not starting to come in until at least 6 a.m., we had customs pretty much to ourselves.
Although the carrier sells Iceland as a destination, passengers can connect to PLAY’s destination in mainline Europe as this airport is good at handling mass amounts of people and processing them quickly in the hour or so of connection time the airline gives them if they aren’t staying in Iceland.
I continued onto Copenhagen in Denmark, but not for a couple of days so I did continue towards the “exit to Iceland” sign. The morning I arrived in Iceland I went to the airline’s headquarters in Reykjavik to interview the airline’s CEO Einar Örn Ólafsson.
This airline is trying to brand itself as the fun and affordable way to get to Iceland, which is good considering how relatively expensive Iceland is to not only visit but also to fly to. PLAY did offer a considerable amount of amenities and they are a step above budget carriers like Spirit or EasyJet. I would fly them again not only to Iceland but also to connect between mainland Europe and the United States.
Editor’s Note: PLAY provided AirlineGeeks with a seat on this flight, but this trip report is an objective portrayal of the events and is in no way swayed by that aspect.
Joe has always been interested in planes, for as long as he can remember. He grew up in Central New York during the early 2000s when US Airways Express turboprops ruled the skies. Being from a non-aviation family made it harder for him to be around planes and would only spend about three hours a month at the airport. He was so excited when he could drive by himself and the first thing he did with the license was get ice cream and go plane spotting for the entire day. When he has the time (and money) he likes to take spotting trips to any location worth a visit. He’s currently enrolled at Western Michigan University earning a degree in Aviation Management and Operations.
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