LONDON – Icelandic low-cost carrier, PLAY Airlines has reported its ever increasing load figures for 2022. December proved to be a particularly productive month, with load factors of 82.8 per cent. This load factor translates into a four fold increase on the passengers carried in December 2021.
Load factors in November were also positive coming in at 79.1 per cent. Routes to London, Paris and the Canary islands proved to be some of the airlines most popular routes with travellers.
Figures show that of those using PLAY to travel last year; 29% were travelling from Iceland, 31% travelling to the popular holiday destination, and 40% were using Iceland as a base to make an onward connecting flight.
In amongst difficulty brought on by severe weather conditions in December, on time performance (OTP) came in at 71.9%. Overall OTP for the year was 87%, which has seen PLAY CEO Birgir Jonsson describe punctuality as world class.
“We close an eventful year with very robust traffic numbers which show that PLAY is absolutely on the right track to becoming a force to be reckoned with in our focus markets,” says Jonsson.
“It fills me with enthusiasm to see that we achieved a higher load factor in December than the airlines we compare ourselves with at the same time as our punctuality is world-class.”
“These metrics show how well we have been able to tune our network and capacity to meet the needs of the market and how effective and professional our operational teams are in serving our passengers and making sure they get to their destinations on time with a smile on their faces.”
“I am very glad to see the very considerable share of our local market that we have won, as we are facing very strong competition in the market.”
“The fact that around 25% of all people in Iceland that traveled abroad last year chose PLAY over our competitors makes us all very humble and grateful for that decisive and public vote of confidence.”
“We enter the new year filled with power and ambition and a laser focus on reaching our goals,” says the PLAY CEO optimistically.
The airline that is based out of Keflavik International airport has seen a difficult introduction into the industry given that it only commenced operations in 2021, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic that ground a significant amount of aviation travel to a halt.
With this in mind and 2022 being the first full year of operations for the carrier, figures of 789,151 passengers flown on more than 5,400 flights to an ever changing and increasing route network look very positive.
25 per cent of travellers flying abroad from Iceland last year used PLAY rather than other options within the Scandinavian flight network. For a young company that has only experienced one full year of operations, this is good work.
2022 saw PLAY serve 25 destinations in both Europe and North America, utilising 8 Airbus single aisle A320/1neo aircraft, but natural growth sees them expanding to up to 40 destinations using 10 A320 or A321 jets throughout the coming year.
