Traveling to Europe from the US just got cheaper—if passengers are willing to forgo all frills and travel light. Budget Icelandic airline PLAY has announced $99 flights from the US to Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, Liverpool, Paris and Reykjavik. They are bookable as single legs of a round-trip flight, for travel in October to March 2025, with departures from East Coast airports in the Boston, New York and Washington areas.
But there’s a catch: The airfares will be available only as part of a flash sale from Sept. 26 through Oct. 3, and the airline isn’t revealing how many are available. Still, it’s part of a growing trend with new low-cost carriers competing for passengers.
The cheap flights are PLAY’s basic airfare, which allows passengers to bring just one small personal item like a handbag that can fit under the seat. Anything else—full-size carry-ons or onboard food and drink including water—incurs an additional charge, starting at around $49 for carry-on bags and priority boarding. There aren’t in-flight entertainment kits or Wi-Fi so don’t expect to catch up on the latest movie releases or get much work done.
PLAY manages to offer the low fares by flying to smaller airports that offer an alternative to the continent’s main hubs. Flights to London land in Stansted, 40 miles from central London, as opposed to the main hub of Heathrow, which is 14 miles away. New York flights leave from New York Stewart International Airport, some 70 miles north of Times Square in Orange County, instead of JFK or LaGuardia. And all of PLAY’s flights are on narrowbody Airbus aircraft from the A320 family in 3-3 seat formations, with layovers at Keflavik airport in Reykjavik, where the airline is based. For some, that may be an excuse to extend the layover and turn it from inconvenience to opportunity, especially as Iceland prepares for a winter of strong seismic activity that could lead to particularly bright displays of the northern lights this year.
The flash sale comes as a handful of new low-cost carriers look to break into long-haul routes and jostle for brand awareness and market share. PLAY itself is a relatively new airline, established in 2019 and debuting its first transatlantic flights in 2022. Norse Atlantic Airways, whose first flight took off from Oslo to New York in June 2022, is also offering tickets from New York to Berlin starting at $119 this October. Norse Atlantic was unwilling to confirm the exact number of tickets available at these low prices, but at the time of writing, there were easy-to-find seats available for $123.
Additionally, US carrier JetBlue Airways Corp. started operating flights between New York and London in 2021, and added service to and from Paris in 2023, and Dublin and Edinburgh this year. And of course basic economy fares have become a mainstay of legacy carriers as well in recent years, offering discounts to flyers willing to go without amenities.
All that points to a landscape where soon enough it won’t take a fare sale to cross the Atlantic for under $200, even if it means packing light and coughing up a few bucks for that onboard soda.
