Editor’s note: The new issue of Iceland Insider's print issue is out and ready to pick up if you are in Iceland or read in a digital format online. Here is my column from the new issue.
How about this fact: Iceland’s largest airline, Icelandair, offers more flights to North America than all the other airlines in the Nordic countries combined. That’s impressive indeed.
Actually, Iceland is amazingly well connected to the outside world. Being an island in the middle of the North Atlantic and on the edge of the habitable world, this has not always been the case.
For centuries, Iceland was one of the most isolated places on planet earth and living on this far-flung pile of rock brought recurring misery all over the nation. Through the ages, the struggle with shortages of necessities was an ongoing theme, especially when freighters could sail only sporadically during turbulent times in Europe.
How times have changed! Never before in Iceland’s history has transport to and from the country been as good as this year. This past summer, fifteen international airlines offered scheduled flights to fifty cities from Iceland’s Keflavík International airport.
At the end of 2014, more than 3.3 million passengers will have passed through the airport (most individuals are counted twice doing a round-trip). That’s 10 times the number of inhabitants in Iceland. Some of those passengers are just changing planes on their route between Europe and North America, but the majority are visiting Iceland.
The growth in tourism and the travel industry in the last five years has been spectacular and, based on all analyses, will continue at pace. This booming growth raises serious doubts about the government’s plans to add only six new gates and a modest expansion of waiting areas at Keflavík International Airport before 2016.
With the rapidly growing number of travelers squeezing into a terminal that is already bursting at its seams, it’s important to fix the current situation of increasing congestion and overcrowded check-in desks.
If Iceland’s government does not act more decisively, those issues will remain unsolved.
Editor’s note: The new issue of Iceland Insider's print issue is out and ready to pick up if you are in Iceland or read in a digital format online. Here is my column from the new issue.
How about this fact: Iceland’s largest airline, Icelandair, offers more flights to North America than all the other airlines in the Nordic countries combined. That’s impressive indeed.
Actually, Iceland is amazingly well connected to the outside world. Being an island in the middle of the North Atlantic and on the edge of the habitable world, this has not always been the case.
For centuries, Iceland was one of the most isolated places on planet earth and living on this far-flung pile of rock brought recurring misery all over the nation. Through the ages, the struggle with shortages of necessities was an ongoing theme, especially when freighters could sail only sporadically during turbulent times in Europe.
How times have changed! Never before in Iceland’s history has transport to and from the country been as good as this year. This past summer, fifteen international airlines offered scheduled flights to fifty cities from Iceland’s Keflavík International airport.
At the end of 2014, more than 3.3 million passengers will have passed through the airport (most individuals are counted twice doing a round-trip). That’s 10 times the number of inhabitants in Iceland. Some of those passengers are just changing planes on their route between Europe and North America, but the majority are visiting Iceland.
The growth in tourism and the travel industry in the last five years has been spectacular and, based on all analyses, will continue at pace. This booming growth raises serious doubts about the government’s plans to add only six new gates and a modest expansion of waiting areas at Keflavík International Airport before 2016.
With the rapidly growing number of travelers squeezing into a terminal that is already bursting at its seams, it’s important to fix the current situation of increasing congestion and overcrowded check-in desks.
If Iceland’s government does not act more decisively, those issues will remain unsolved.
