I am a first time customer on Icelandair to Reykjavik about 2 weeks ago. I must say that I was impressed by the quality of the cabins, which included the personnel entertainment system, which I felt was definitely superior to many other airlines I have taken. In addition, I was impressed by the CEO's note in the Icelandair magazine that your airline was actually the most punctual airline in Europe.
However, sadly, the beautiful image of your airline failed to last past my return flight on the 15 Oct from Reykjavik to Boston. I was initially worried when the flight was delayed for 25 minutes for boarding. Expecting that the crew would hurry and try to make good the arrival time, I was shocked when we were left waiting on the ground. The original flight was due to leave at 1700. The initial delay put the new time at 1725. Once on the plane at 1725, the pilot announced that we should be taxiing out in 10 minutes, which should have been 1735. However, the plane eventually only taxiied out at 1750. I had a connecting flight to catch on American airline to Dallas and informed the cabin crew. However, I only received the cursory answer that there is nothing they can do about it. It was only later that I found out that we waited on the ground because your airline was waiting for another flight with connecting passengers from Paris. Now, instead of only being late for the Paris flight, both the Paris flight and the Boston flight have been delayed. I catered for 2 hours for my connecting flight, believing that it would be more than sufficient. However, due to the delay, I arrived an hour late at Boston, resulting in us missing our connecting flight to Dallas. I can understand if the flight is delayed due to weather or technical issues with the plane. However, I am disappointed that we were intentionally delayed. To make things worse, after the American Airlines staff helped us change our flight to the next morning(the flight we missed was the last of the day), they advised us to return to the Iceland Air counter to obtain a hotel voucher since the flight was delayed. I spoke to your supervisor on station, Mr Thornberg and was very disappointed in his attitude in handling our delay. At no point did he apologise for the delay and in addition, after checking our tickets, he stated in a matter of fact manner that my flight ended at Boston with Iceland Air and he was not contractually bound to provide any hotel voucher. I patiently explained that I could not book a flight to Reykjavik from Dallas and therefore, had to book the Boston flight from your website and then made my own arrangements from Boston to Dallas. He was insistent that I could have booked a flight from Dallas to Reykjavik all through the Iceland Air website. After failing to convince him, I left totally frustrated with the entire situation. In the end, I booked a hotel myself and actually met a couple of Iceland Air passengers in the same situation. After returning home, I checked on the website again and confirmed that I could only book a flight on Iceland air from a few American Cities, which does not include Dallas. Does that mean that Iceland Air is not interested in doing business with Americans in these other cities. I hope that the customer relations department would do something about this disappointing and hopefully isolated incident. I hope to receive a satisfactory reply from Iceland Air, failing which, I would make it my responsibility to bring it higher in your organisation and reflect my experience in various forums and travel magazines.