Loftleiðir
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Loftleiðir was a private Icelandic airline.
[edit] History
Loftleiðir, or Icelandic Airlines Loftleiðir, was founded on March 10, 1944 by three young Icelandic pilots after returning from training in Canada. During the first year of operation, they only operated on domestic routes from Reykjavík Airport and international services from Keflavík International Airport.
On June 17, 1947, (Iceland's Independence Day), Loftleiðir inaugurated the first international service, linking Reykjavík and Copenhagen with a Skymaster. This was the first aircraft fitted for international operations. In 1948 Loftleiðir was granted permission to operate in the USA, and in August 1948, a Loftleiðir Skymaster landed at Idlewild Airport (now JFK) with 46 passengers. In 1952 Loftleiðir opened regular services between New York and Europe via Iceland.
During the 1950s, restrictions on international air traffic was more rigid than today. The freedoms of the air restricted airliners to carry passenger and cargo to and from the country of the aircraft's registration only. Loftleiðir benefited from this by selling air-tickets from USA to European Cities by breaking the ticket into two, one to Iceland and one from Iceland. It was not necessary to break the journey, only issue the passengers with two tickets.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Loftleiðir introduced low-cost fare on the North Atlantic starting from Luxembourg via the Nordic Countries and Iceland. The low-cost tickets became very popular and attracted many passengers. The airline faced problems with IATA because of this.[citation needed]
The competition between Loftleiðir and Iceland's flag carrier, Flugfélag Íslands, led to economical problems and the two companies merged in 1973 into a new company, Icelandair. The name Flugfélag Íslands appeared again in 1997 through a merger of Icelandair and Flugfélag Nordurlands, it was used for the domestic airline arm of the company. From 2003, Loftleiðir Icelandic operated again as a charter-company sub-charter aircraft to other airline, as a part of Icelandair group.
