Traveling from the US to Europe is now cheaper – if passengers are willing to forego all the frills and travel light. Cheap Icelandic airline PLAY has announced $99 flights from the US to Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, Liverpool, Paris and Reykjavik. They can be booked as single legs of a round-trip flight for travel from October to March 2025 and depart from East Coast airports in the Boston, New York and Washington regions.
But there’s a catch: The fares will only be available as part of a flash sale from September 26 to October 3, and the airline isn’t disclosing how many are available. Still, it’s part of a growing trend in which new low-cost airlines are competing for passengers.
The cheap flights are PLAY’s base fare, which allows passengers to bring just one small personal item such as a handbag that fits under the seat. Everything else — full-size carry-on luggage or onboard food and drinks including water — incurs an additional fee that starts at about $49 Hand luggage and priority boarding. There are no in-flight entertainment kits or WiFi. So don’t expect to catch up on the latest movie releases or do a lot of work.
PLAY manages to offer the most affordable fares by flying to smaller airports that offer an alternative to the continent’s main hubs. Flights to London land at Stansted, 40 miles from central London, as opposed to the main hub Heathrow, which is 14 miles away. New York flights depart from New York Stewart International Airport, about 70 miles north of Times Square in Orange County, instead of JFK or LaGuardia. And all of PLAY’s flights are operated using narrowbody Airbus A320 family aircraft in 3-3-seater formations, with stopovers at Keflavik Airport in Reykjavik, where the airline is based. For some, that could be an excuse to extend the stopover and turn it from an inconvenience into an opportunity, especially as Iceland prepares for a winter with strong seismic activity that could result This year particularly bright displays of the Northern Lights.
The flash sale comes at a time when a handful of new budget airlines are trying to gain a foothold on long-haul routes and compete for brand recognition and market share. PLAY itself is a relatively new airline, founded in 2019 and launching its first transatlantic flights in 2022. Norse Atlantic Airwayswhose first flight departed from Oslo to New York in June 2022, is also offering tickets from New York to Berlin starting at $119 this October. Norse Atlantic would not confirm the exact number of tickets available at these low prices, but at the time of writing, easy-to-find seats were available for $123.
Additionally US carriers JetBlue Airways Corp. started Operating flights between New York and London in 2021and additional service to and from Paris in 2023 and Dublin and Edinburgh this year. And of course there are also the basic economy tariffs have also become a mainstay of the legacy airlines in recent yearsand offers discounts to passengers willing to forego amenities.
All of this points to a situation where you’ll soon no longer need to buy tickets to cross the Atlantic for under $200, even if that means packing light and spending a few bucks on onboard soda must.