PLAY airlines carried 142,918 passengers in March, which is a 65% increase from March last year when PLAY carried 86,661 passengers. PLAY's load factor in March 2024 was 88.1% compared to 80.6% in March last year. The load factor in March 2024 is the highest load factor PLAY has had in a winter month.
Of the passengers flying with PLAY in March 2024, 25.6% were travelling from Iceland, 36% were flying to Iceland and 38.4% were connecting passengers (VIA). The ratio of passengers flying to Iceland shows that the demand for Iceland is picking up again after a slump followed by inaccurate global news coverage about the seismic activity in Iceland last year.
PLAY had an on-time performance of 94% in March, which is among the best on-time performances in the airline industry.
The demand for PLAY's leisure destinations has been strong. Alicante, Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona and Tenerife all had around 90% load factor. Our city destinations in Europe also saw a strong demand. London, Berlin, Paris, and Copenhagen had over 90% load factor, and Dublin and Amsterdam had nearly 90%.
Two new destinations
PLAY announced two new destinations in March, Madeira Island and Marrakech. PLAY will have its first flight to Marrakech on October 17 and will operate up to two weekly flights on Thursdays and Sundays. This will be the first time scheduled flights are operated between Iceland and Africa, but the flight time between Iceland and Marrakech is just over five hours.
The first flight to Madeira will be on October 15 and PLAY will operate weekly flights on Tuesdays.
Einar Örn Ólafsson, PLAY's CEO:
"We had acceptable load figures in March with the early Easter period more than balancing out the negative impact of the seismic activities towards the end of 2023. The high summer season is ahead of us, and we look forward to breaking more records in PLAY's history. The number of passengers travelling with us to Iceland and connecting passengers shows the tremendous work that has been done to increase our awareness in our foreign markets where we strive to offer competitive prices. I am extremely proud of our team, and our on-time performance in March shows the level of professionalism that my colleagues possess.
