$129 To Europe: New Airline PLAY Launches Seasonal Winter Service
This seems literally insane to me. Transatlantic low cost carrier PLAY is launching seasonal winter service from Orlando International Airport to Reykjavik (Keflavik), Iceland with connections onward available to Berlin, Dublin, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, London, and Paris. They’re introducing the service with outbound pricing from $129.
Here’s the thing.
Winter is when no one goes to Europe
Winter is when no one goes to Iceland
Service will run October through April three days a week (Tue/Thur/Sat outbound, Mon/Wed/Fri return).
I can only imagine the primary audience for this flight is Europeans getting out when it’s cold, but they’ll promote it on this side of the Pond, too. The major challenge for low cost long haul carriers across the Atlantic is what to do with their planes in winter. They can manage in summer when everyone is crossing the ocean, but they lack the business customers to limit the winter bleed.
Orlando seems as good a place as any, even if no leisure traveler in their right mind would go to Iceland in winter, and connecting fares on other airlines to other European cities will be cheap even on legacy carriers. The airline is taking delivery of a new Airbus narrowbody and has to send it somewhere. Still, when they’re promoting they’re the only airline offering connecting service from Orlando to London Stansted they’re really stretching.
The $129 one way includes taxes and covers travel to Iceland, Berlin, Dublin, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, London, or Paris and must be booked by midnight Eastern time on February 27.
To Iceland Keflavík (KEF) on Tuesdays between October 1, 2022 – February 25, 2023
To Paris (CDG), Copenhagen (CPH), London (STN), and Dublin (DUB) on Tuesdays between October 4, 2022 – February 21, 2023
To Berlin (BER) on Tuesdays between October 4, 2022 to October 25, 2022
To Gothenburg (GOT) on Thursdays between October 6, 2022 to October 27, 2022
December 13, 2022 – January 5, 2023 is blacked out