On September 15, 2024 my wife and I travelled on your airlline from Portland, OR to Zurich, Switzerland with a brief stopover in Reykjavik. It was an uneventful flight that preceded our first European Tour vacation through Switzerland and Austria with Trafalgar Tours. The entire trip with Trafalgar was great.
Then came the attempted return to Portland, which can best be described as a chaotic nightmare of incompetence, punctuated by multiple delays, gate changes, and confusion/frustration/anger. To make matters worse, we made multiple attempts to get assistance from employees who were either unable to provide information in a timely manner or simply trying to outdo one another in their ineptitude.
On the afternoon of September 27, we arrived at the Reykjavik airport after a 45-minute delay in Zurich (Flight FI569). We—as well as several other paying passengers—were rightly concerned about catching our connecting flight to Portland (Flight FI665) at 16:50. However, despite repeatedly being assured during our flight that aircraft in Reykjavik would be held for us (an obvious lie), we learned that we would not be allowed to board the plane bound for Portland! Things deteriorated from there.
After being sent through passport check, we headed to baggage claim, only to find our bags not on on the carousel (despite signage that indicated all baggage had arrived). Our repeated inquiries with the baggage service desk were met with assurances from the staff that “Your bags will arrive. Just be patient.” After one hour of frustration, we received toiletry bags for our overnight stay (they were not offered, but only given when we mentioned it). We finally arrived at the “Meeting Point” in the airport only to find that our shuttle to the hotel had left! Apparently, the baggage service personnel were not concerned about our overnight stay. We eventually boarded a second shuttle to a hotel where we met the other passengers having dinner. We hurriedly ate our dinner so as not to miss the shuttle to the second hotel (30 minutes away) for our overnight stay. Please keep reading, as it gets better from here.
We were re-booked on a flight to Portland, and left the hotel at 11:15, arriving at the airport 45 minutes later. When the “service desk” at the airport opened, we inquired about our missing luggage. We were assured it would be with us on our 16:50 flight to Portland. After changing the departure time to 17:10 and moving to a different gate, we eagerly awaited boarding the the aircraft that was obviously there. Then the flight information screen went blank, and re-appeared with information about a flight to Vancouver. An announcement was then made that our flight was cancelled! You can only imagine the shock and frustration of 150+ paying passengers who watched as the plane—obviously ready for Portland—was immediately taken for the Vancouver flight. Having already experienced the “overnight hotel accommodation routine” the night before, we knew the drill: another trip through passport control to the baggage reclaim, and then a trip to the “Meeting Point.” This time we hoped that our luggage would be there and not on the aircraft bound for Vancouver! Luckily, we retrieved our, and we once again hurriedly made our way to the “Meeting Point” to join the 150+ confused and frustrated paying passengers for what would be a one-hour wait for buses. During that time, no information was provided, as we watched paying passengers continually inquire with the lone employee who urged them to be patient.
Three large buses finally arrived, taking some customers to a hotel one-hour away from the airport, and taking us to another hotel two-hours away. Our bus driver did an admirable job trying to navigate through a fogged-up windshield on his unsafe bus (I gave him a t-shirt so that he could wipe a small hole to see through the fog). He still had difficulty with driving, as the check-engine light repeatedly warned him that the erratic behavior of the bus was a potential problem. We sat in the front row of the bus, so we witnessed the entire ride while others in the bus sat uninformed and confused.
After arriving at our hotel, throughout dinner, and the few hours we had left to try to get some sleep, we received absolutely no information about how we were to get back to the airport for our 11:25 departure on another airline the next day. Unable to sleep, my wife went to the hotel reception desk at 03:45 to see if any information had been posted about travel to the airport. She luckily noticed that there was a taxi awaiting another passenger, and we were given 5 minutes to accompany him to the airport. This scenario seemed to be an acceptable practice for your Icelandair.
We arrived at the airport at around 06:00 and spent the next several hours waiting for our departure to Portland. When we finally boarded the aircraft, we were disappointed once again, as we were informed that we would have to wait on the tarmac for nearly 2 hours as it was refueled! We finally arrived at the JFK airport in New York for our 7-hour layover before the 5-hour flight to Portland. Sleep deprivation was taking its toll.
After a slight departure delay at JFK, we finally boarded our flight to Portland, and arrived at 23:30 where our son picked us up for the 45-minute drive home. As you can imagine, the fact that what should have been a total travel time of 8 hours from Reykjavik to Portland took 17 hours leaves us with a low opinion of the “service” that Icelandair provides. We are in the process of seeking compensation as per your website and printed information offered to us.
We will never fly with Icelandair again and will encourage others to do likewise,