Recent years have seen unusually sharp rises and falls in the growth of international flights in Iceland. Passenger numbers at Keflavík International Airport rose sharply between 2009 and 2018, more than quadrupling over the period. The company was barely able to keep up with upgrading infrastructure and service capability in line with this growth. Then things turned completely on their head. Passenger numbers fell by 26% in 2019, due to the collapse of WOW air and the grounding of Icelandair’s Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Following a tough year, by early 2020 the tourism sector – including Isavia – imagined that the worst was now over and was gearing up for growth to return.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. As we all know, the pandemic hit in early 2020, causing an 81% drop year-on-year in the number of international passengers using Keflavík Airport. We need to go right back to the turn of the century – long before tourism began to boom in Iceland – to find similar passenger numbers at Keflavík Airport.
All of this put Isavia’s strength seriously to the test. It is good to see how well the company – despite everything – has handled the misfortunes visited on it by the pandemic. The organisation changes made in the group in 2019 make it easier for various operational units in the Isavia group to pursue their priorities in wholly unforeseen circumstances.
The company has been successful in protecting and maintaining its infrastructure during the pandemic – this infrastructure is an integral part of Iceland’s key infrastructure, in both economic and security terms. The company continues to have good access to liquidity, a very important factor in the current period of uncertainty. International opinion polls have placed Iceland in a strong competitive position as a safe, high-quality tourist destination – with much-sought-after natural wilderness – when world travel to some extent starts up again.