Brand new Icelandic carrier NICEAIR has made its inaugural flight.
The first flight was on 02 June from the airline’s base at Akureyri (AEY) in northern Iceland to Copenhagen.
The 90 minute flight was with the airline’s 150-seat A319 (registration – 9H-XFW), which it only received a few days before.
Nice Air and the people in the region hope the new airline works well. Passengers from Akureyri have to make a 4 to 5 hour one-way trip just to catch a flight from Keflavík.
So passengers in northern Iceland have great hope for “their” Iceland.
Routes
Nice Air is starting operations from Akureyri to three destinations:
- Copenhagen – two round trips a week, on Thursday and Sunday
- London Stansted – two round trips a week, on Monday and Friday
- Tenerife – one round trip a week, on Wednesday
The airline plans to add flights to Manchester in October 2022.
The first day of operation on 02 June, went very well with the round trip to Copenhagen operating successfully.
The second route to Stansted started well, the aircraft arrived at Stansted on time. But there was an issue with UK licensing authorities that meant the return flight was delayed. So Nice Air flew the passengers to Keflavík Airport on other airlines.
It turns out that Nice Air doesn’t have its own air operators certificate. The operating airline is Hi Fly Malta and Nice Air is leasing the A319 from Hi Fly, a wet leasing specialist.
The aircraft is fully branded, inside and out, as Nice Air.
Hopefully this was just a starting hitch and the airline goes on to be a great success.
UPDATE: Nice Air flights to/from London Stansted are not being sold on the website. The route is on the home page but clicking through gets you to nowhere – certainly not London Stansted.
N.B. Image credit: Nice Air
