Niceair has cancelled all of its UK flights after just one trip, following complications.
UK Flights Cancelled
Iceland’s newest airline has encountered difficulties straight out of the gate. Following Niceair’s inaugural flight to London, they’ve been forced to cancel all of their flights to the UK for the foreseeable future. A rocky start for the fledgling carrier.
The airline’s first flight to London Stanstead took off from Akureyri on 3 June, and landed without any issues. The trouble came when the aircraft turned around to take passengers back to Iceland. The company was forced to fly passengers home via an alternative airline, while their own plane returned to Akureyri empty.
It turns out that although UK authorities had given Niceair special permission to take passengers from Iceland to the UK, the same exemption did not apply to taking passengers from the UK to Iceland. Airline CEO Þorvaldur Lúðvik Sigurjónsson admits that he has not received a clear picture of what exactly the problem is, but blames the hiccup on “Brexit-related complications”. He assures customers that a solution is being worked out with both British and Icelandic authorities.
The Future for Niceair
In the meantime, Niceair has been forced to cancel all of its London flights, having completed only a single trip. Flights to Manchester have also been cancelled before they could even begin. An awkward situation for the start-up airline.
Niceair began operations on 2 June this year, offering passengers flights to Copenhagen, London, Manchester, and Tenerife from their base in Akureyri. The carrier operates a single Airbus 319-100, which will be seeing significantly less action now that half of its routes have been temporarily suspended. Thankfully, the airline has had no misfortune with its Denmark flights and will be operating the Copenhagen route twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays.
