Icelandair

Is Icelandair safe?

Yes. Icelandair has not had a fatal accident in almost 48 years, it flies under the same EASA rules as the rest of Europe, and it carried more than 5 million passengers in 2025. We score it 82, below Finnair and SAS, its Nordic neighbours.

The gap is not about crashes. It comes from the incidents of the last ten years, one of them hard to excuse, and from a fleet that is only now losing its old Boeing 757s.

Icelandair's crash history

Icelandair today is the product of a 1973 merger between Flugfélag Íslands and Loftleiðir, and both brought fatal accidents with them. On 26 September 1970 an F27 on flight FI704 from Bergen to the Faroe Islands hit the mountain on Mykines while trying to get below cloud for an approach to Vágar; 8 of the 34 people on board died.

The deadliest came eight years later. On 15 November 1978 a Loftleiðir DC-8, chartered by Garuda to carry Indonesian pilgrims home from Mecca, crashed into a plantation about 2 km short of the runway at Colombo at night. 183 of the 262 people on board died. The crew had not reported being established on the localizer, and the approach controller's warning that they were too low went out on a frequency they were not listening to. Sri Lanka's investigators blamed the crew for not following the approach procedure; Iceland's aviation authority blamed a faulty glide slope signal and the lack of approach lights.

Since then there have been no deaths. The one write-offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary was Air Iceland's: in March 2011 a Dash 8 landed hard while still turning in gusty wind at Nuuk, Greenland, collapsed its right main gear and skidded into rocks. All 34 people survived. Danish investigators blamed an unstabilised approach and a breakdown of crew cooperation. Air Iceland was then a sister airline; it has since been folded into Icelandair, which now flies its domestic and Greenland routes.

Serious incidents since 2016

This is where Icelandair loses points. In October 2016 a 757 on a satellite approach to Keflavík in a 45-knot gale went around about 2.9 nm from the runway at roughly 400 feet, far below the normal profile. In October 2019 a 757 from Seattle, short of fuel after another aircraft had blocked the open runway, declared an emergency and landed on a runway that was closed and still occupied at its far end. Iceland's investigators put that mostly on poor communication between air traffic control and Reykjavík airport, and on alternate fuel that left no margin.

In February 2020 the right main gear of 757 TF-FIA collapsed after touchdown at Keflavík and the aircraft scraped along on its engine; nobody was hurt. The cause was in the workshop: a nut fitted to the gear during an overhaul in late 2019 was the wrong size for threads that had been cut undersize twice. In August 2022 a 737 MAX going around at about 50 feet climbed out over another Icelandair jet taking off on the same runway. In 2023 two aircraft scraped their tails, a MAX at Toronto and a 757 charter at Varanasi.

The case that weighs most is the latest. On 11 April 2026 the captain of FI521 from Frankfurt, on his retirement flight, took a 757 down to about 1,000 feet over Vestmannaeyjar, the island town where he grew up, before continuing to Keflavík. Icelandair said the manoeuvre was not approved and called it a very serious matter. In July 2026 press reports said the Icelandic Transport Authority had suspended the captain's licence for two years and the first officer's for one; we could not see the decision itself. Nothing went wrong, but a crew choosing to break the rules with passengers on board is the kind of event a safety culture is meant to prevent.

How old is Icelandair's fleet?

Mixed, and getting younger fast. At the end of 2025 the group owned 11 Boeing 757s, five 767s, six 737s and six Dash 8s, plus leased 737 MAXs and Airbus A321LRs. Icelandair does not publish an average age. The 757s are the oldest part: TF-FIA, the one whose gear collapsed in 2020, was built in 2000.

The company has brought their retirement forward. The last 757 is due to leave in January 2027, nine leased A321LRs are arriving (six by June 2026) and four A320neos built in 2017 and 2018 join in the first half of 2027. By summer 2027, Icelandair says, almost the whole international network will be flown by 737 MAX and A320 family jets. Thirteen A321XLRs are on firm order from 2029.

Flying to and from Iceland

Keflavík is a well-equipped airport on an exposed peninsula. Winter storms with gusts of 40 to 55 knots are routine, and Icelandair has had to go around, hold or divert in them more than once. Domestic flights to Akureyri, Egilsstaðir and Ísafjörður and the Greenland routes to Nuuk and Kulusuk are harder still, with short runways and quick weather changes.

Volcanoes get more attention than they deserve as a safety risk. The Reykjanes peninsula next to Keflavík erupted twice in 2025, and Icelandair reports that neither affected the airport or its flights. Ash clouds disrupt schedules; they do not make a flight that goes ahead unsafe.

• In a winter storm, plan for disruption. Book connections through Keflavík with a long layover from November to March.
• Ask what you are flying. Until January 2027 some routes still use 757s; the booking page shows the type.

How we scored it

Oversight (90) and the accident record (90) are solid: no deaths since 1978 under European rules. Incidents (68) cost the most, because the list since 2016 includes a deliberate low pass and a maintenance error that collapsed a landing gear. The fleet (72) will improve once the 757s are gone, and the environment (72) reflects Icelandic weather. Overall 82.