Flights to Reykjavik: what actually flies there

Most people booking flights to Reykjavik still search for an airline that stopped flying the Atlantic in September 2025, or assume a nonstop exists from a city that Keflavik has never served. Neither mistake is obvious until the fare search comes back wrong. Keflavik International Airport (KEF), 47.2 km (29 miles) from Reykjavik by road, is served today by a fixed roster of airlines, some running their Iceland route only in summer or only in winter. This page sets out which US, UK and Canadian cities connect nonstop, which of those routes hold all year, and what a reasonable flight time and fare look like from the gateways travellers actually fly from. It does not cover fares from a single city in detail, that sits on the route pages linked below. Icelandair is the only Icelandic carrier flying the route network today, and every other name on this page is a foreign airline serving KEF alongside it.

Where the nonstops actually start

A flight to Reykjavik from most of the United States means one stop somewhere, and travellers searching for a direct option from a smaller city are usually met with a connection through New York, Boston or Toronto. Keflavik's own published route list shows nonstop US service from fifteen cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York (both JFK and Newark), Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Seattle and Washington DC. That list runs wider than most travellers expect, and wider than the routes that show up first on a generic fare search, which tends to default to New York and Boston because those are the highest-frequency routes rather than the only ones.

Three of those fifteen US routes do not run all year. Detroit and Pittsburgh operate in summer only; Miami runs in winter only, the reverse pattern of the other two, timed opposite the northern summer travel peak. Canada adds seven more nonstop cities to the map: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg. The UK contributes eleven nonstop airports of its own, more than any other single country outside continental Europe, spread well beyond London: Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted in the capital, plus Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle. A traveller starting from a regional UK airport is often closer to a nonstop option than a Canadian traveller in a mid-sized city, simply because of how the UK network is built out.

None of this is fixed. Route lists at Keflavik are published and re-checked by Isavia, the airport's operator, and a route confirmed today can be dropped or added before the next timetable comes out, particularly the routes tagged as seasonal above.

The airline roster, and the one name to drop

A traveller comparing fares against an old bookmark or a saved search from a year ago is the most common way an outdated airline ends up in a shortlist. Keflavik's live roster, as published by Isavia, runs to Air Baltic, Air Canada, Air Greenland, Air Transat, Alaska Airlines, Atlantic Airways, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Delta, Discover Airlines, easyJet, Edelweiss, Enter Air, Eurowings, Finnair, Iberia Express, Icelandair, Jet2, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Neos, Norwegian, SAS, Smartwings, Transavia, TUI, United Airlines, Vueling, WestJet and Wizz Air. That list does not include PLAY, which ceased operations on 29 September 2025. Any fare comparison, saved itinerary or booking guide that still lists PLAY as an option is working from data that predates that closure.

Icelandair remains the largest carrier at the airport by a wide margin, flying 60 destinations from Keflavik and serving as the main hub airline for the route network as a whole. It is also the only Icelandic carrier still crossing the Atlantic, which matters for anyone assuming a second domestic option exists the way it did before September 2025. The airlines that connect Keflavik specifically to North America are a shorter list within the roster above: Icelandair, Delta, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet. Everything else on the full roster is either an Icelandic domestic and regional connection through Icelandair or a European carrier serving KEF from the continent and the UK.

Timing a search around the calendar, not the fare alone

Chasing flight deals to Reykjavik purely on price, without checking whether the route in question runs year round, is how a booking ends up cancelled or rerouted through a connection that was not part of the plan. The seasonal split across Keflavik's route map is real: of the routes Isavia lists, the majority hold all year, a smaller group runs only in the summer months and a smaller group again is winter only. Detroit and Pittsburgh sit in the summer-only group; Miami sits in the winter-only group, which is unusual since most seasonal leisure routes to Iceland lean toward summer rather than winter.

A fare that looks unusually low on a summer-only or winter-only route is often just the airline filling seats on a route it will not fly again until the season resets, not evidence of a lasting discount. The more dependable pattern is to treat the year-round routes, which form the bulk of the map, as the ones worth comparing on price across months, and to treat the seasonal routes as fixed windows: book them when the window is open, not as a hypothetical any time of year. Nothing here says which months carry the lowest average fare, since that figure moves too often to state as a fact rather than a guess, but the seasonal shape of the map itself does not move within a given year once the airline has published its schedule.

What the flight itself actually involves

A traveller booking on flight time alone, without accounting for the airport at the other end, tends to underestimate the total door-to-door time by the better part of an hour. Keflavik sits 47.2 km (29 miles) from Reykjavik by road, a drive of about 47 minutes in ordinary traffic, and the terminal itself, Flugstöð Leifs Eiríkssonar, sits close to Keflavík town, about 3 km away. The airport has expanded before: its most recent terminal expansion was completed on 20 March 2025, and a further expansion, a central connecting building, has phase one planned from 2026, though building work does not usually change a passenger's experience of the terminal until it opens.

Once the aircraft lands, the two main ways into Reykjavik are the Flybus service, run by Kynnisferðir, at a one-way fare of 3,999 ISK, or a taxi through the Hreyfill cooperative, priced from 22,500 ISK. Both cover the same 47.2 km route; the difference is entirely about group size and schedule flexibility rather than the distance covered. Airlines do not control ground transport pricing or timing, so a delay on the flight itself does not usually affect the bus or taxi fare, only which departure a traveller catches once through arrivals.

How long the flight actually is

A direct flight Reykjavik search from a US gateway often returns a number that assumes the shortest possible routing, which is not always the one on offer that day. Isavia's published times for the main US gateways put New York JFK at 5 hours 45 minutes, Boston at 5 hours 40 minutes, Washington DC at 6 hours 25 minutes, Chicago at 6 hours 5 minutes, Seattle at 7 hours 30 minutes and Denver at 8 hours 5 minutes. Boston and New York are the shortest of the group by a clear margin, which tracks with their position as the easternmost of the six.

From the UK, the flight times run much shorter across the board: London Heathrow at 3 hours 15 minutes, London Gatwick at 3 hours 10 minutes, Manchester at 2 hours 45 minutes, Edinburgh at 2 hours 20 minutes and Glasgow at 2 hours 15 minutes, the shortest of the named UK gateways. For context against the wider European network, the shortest hops into Keflavik of any kind are the Faroe Islands at 1 hour 25 minutes and Kulusuk in Greenland at 1 hour 50 minutes, both well under half the time of even the fastest UK route. A traveller comparing a UK departure against a US one should expect the UK leg to run under half the time in almost every case.

Building a US itinerary around the seasonal routes

Anyone hunting cheap flights to Reykjavik from usa by comparing every US departure city against the same calendar month is missing that the map itself changes shape across the year. Fifteen US cities have a nonstop to Keflavik on Isavia's list, and twelve of them run all year: Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Nashville, both New York airports, Orlando, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Seattle and Washington DC. The remaining three, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Miami, only fly part of the year, and the direction each takes is opposite: Detroit and Pittsburgh in summer, Miami in winter.

That split matters most for anyone trying to build a trip around a specific departure city rather than a specific date. A traveller in Detroit or Pittsburgh planning a winter trip will not find a nonstop waiting for them and needs to route through one of the year-round hubs instead, most likely New York or Boston given their shorter flight times. A traveller in Miami planning a summer trip faces the same problem in reverse. None of the twelve year-round US cities carry that risk, which is the more useful filter than chasing the lowest fare on a route that might not be flying the month a trip is planned for.

Sorting the airlines by what they actually fly

Airlines that fly to Reykjavik fall into two groups that get confused with each other more often than the route map would suggest: the carriers crossing the Atlantic, and the far larger group of European carriers connecting Keflavik to the rest of Europe and the UK. The Atlantic group is short: Icelandair, Delta, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet cover every nonstop US and Canadian route named on this page between them. Icelandair is the only one of the seven based in Iceland, and it is also the carrier with by far the largest published destination count from KEF, at 60.

The rest of the roster, Air Baltic, Air Greenland, Atlantic Airways, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Discover Airlines, easyJet, Edelweiss, Enter Air, Eurowings, Finnair, Iberia Express, Jet2, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Neos, Norwegian, SAS, Smartwings, Transavia, TUI, Vueling and Wizz Air, connects Keflavik to continental Europe and the UK rather than across the Atlantic. A traveller comparing fares across this full list without separating the two groups will end up pricing routes that never actually compete against each other, since a UK or European carrier is never the alternative to a North American nonstop on the same itinerary.

Why the nonstop count from the US looks smaller on some search engines

Direct flights to Reykjavik from usa are undercounted by most generic fare tools, which tend to surface only the highest-frequency routes, New York and Boston chief among them, rather than the full fifteen-city list Isavia actually publishes. Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Seattle and Washington DC all sit on that list alongside New York and Boston, though three of them, as noted above, are seasonal rather than year-round.

The practical effect is that a traveller starting a search from Nashville or Raleigh-Durham, for instance, may see a routed itinerary through a hub city first, when a nonstop exists, simply because the search tool defaulted to the busier routes. Checking the city against the full list above before assuming a connection is required is the more reliable approach than trusting the first set of results a generic search returns. The seven airlines flying the Atlantic routes, Icelandair, Delta, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet, between them cover the full fifteen-city US list plus the seven Canadian cities named earlier, so no eighth Atlantic carrier needs to be checked for.

Booking the tickets themselves

Reykjavik tickets bought directly through an airline's own site are the most straightforward way to lock in a seasonal route before it disappears from search results at the end of its window, since third-party fare aggregators do not always flag a route as seasonal until availability actually runs out. Once a fare is booked, ground transport from Keflavik is a separate decision entirely: the Flybus runs at a fixed 3,999 ISK one-way fare, while a taxi through Hreyfill starts from 22,500 ISK for the same 47.2 km journey into the city.

Neither the airline nor the airport controls the ground transport pricing, so a fare that looks cheap on the flight itself can still come with a full range of ground transport costs depending on party size and schedule. A traveller flying into a seasonal route, such as the winter-only Miami service or the summer-only Detroit and Pittsburgh services, should also check the return leg falls inside the same seasonal window, since a route that departs during its season is not guaranteed to still be flying on a return date months later if the window has since closed.

The UK side of the map

A UK departure into Keflavik covers far less distance than a US one, and the eleven nonstop airports reflect that: Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted in London, plus Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle. Edinburgh and Glasgow are the fastest of the group, at 2 hours 20 minutes and 2 hours 15 minutes respectively, both shorter than any London departure despite London carrying more total route options.

That spread across regional UK airports means a traveller outside London is often closer to a nonstop than the equivalent traveller in a mid-sized US or Canadian city, where the nonstop map is thinner and concentrated in a handful of larger hubs. The UK FCDO travel advice for Iceland is worth checking before travel regardless of departure airport, alongside the US State Department's Iceland country information for US-based travellers, since entry rules and any current advisories sit outside what an airline's own booking page will show.

Canada's share of the route map

Seven Canadian cities connect nonstop to Keflavik: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg. Halifax, on the Atlantic coast, sits closest to Iceland geographically of the seven, though Isavia's published data does not break out a flight time for it the way it does for the US and UK gateways above. The airlines covering these routes overlap heavily with the US list: Air Canada and WestJet are Canadian carriers flying the routes directly, while Icelandair and Air Transat also serve at least part of the Canadian network alongside their US routes.

A traveller comparing a Canadian departure against a US one from a similar latitude, Winnipeg against Minneapolis, for instance, should expect a broadly similar flight profile, though the exact time is not published for every Canadian city the way it is for the six named US and five named UK gateways elsewhere on this page. Where a specific time is not available, the comparable US or UK gateway at a similar latitude is the closer reference point than an assumption.

Checking the route before booking

Because route lists change between one season and the next, the safest step before booking is confirming a specific route is still live rather than relying on this page or any other written months earlier. Isavia's own Keflavik Airport site publishes the current route list, the airline roster and passenger figures, and is the operator of record for anything that has changed since this page's routes and airline names were checked on 2026-09-08. A route confirmed here as year-round, summer-only or winter-only reflects Isavia's published schedule as of that date, not a permanent feature of the airport.

Weather is a separate consideration from the route map itself. The Icelandic Meteorological Office publishes forecasts and aurora conditions that affect a specific day's flight rather than the underlying schedule, and is the right source to check close to a travel date rather than at the time of booking. Between the two, a traveller has both the structural picture, which cities and airlines serve Keflavik and when, and the day-of picture, which changes far more often and is never worth guessing at.

Common questions

Does Iceland still have a low-cost long-haul airline?

No. PLAY ceased operations on 29 September 2025, and Icelandair is the only Icelandic carrier flying Atlantic routes.

Is there a nonstop flight from every major US city to Keflavik?

No. Fifteen US cities have a nonstop on Isavia's published list, and three of those, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Miami, only run part of the year.

Which UK airport has the shortest flight to Keflavik?

Glasgow, at 2 hours 15 minutes, is the shortest of the eleven UK gateways with a nonstop, just ahead of Edinburgh at 2 hours 20 minutes.

How do I get from Keflavik into Reykjavik after landing?

The Flybus runs for a one-way fare of 3,999 ISK, or a taxi through the Hreyfill cooperative starts from 22,500 ISK, both covering the 47.2 km (29 mile) route.

Do all of Keflavik's routes run all year?

No. Of the routes on Isavia's list, 54 run year round, 21 are summer only and 9 are winter only.