REYKJAVIK 17-21 May 13 Ian Gordon

Our son when asked what he would like for his 21^st birthday replied a trip to Iceland as Icelandair Holidays were doing offers. This sounded reasonable as both my wife and I also wanted to see something of Iceland. I left the choice of hotel to them and was delighted to find they had unwittingly picked the ‘Natura’ which is adjacent to the visitors’ ramp at downtown Reykjavik airport!

We flew from Glasgow on-board B757 TF-IST and noted amongst the usual suspects at GLA on 17/5/13 was EI-FAS ATR72 of Aer Arran. The 1 hour 52 minute flight took us to Keflavik the ‘International’ airport for Iceland and this is @ 40 kms from Reykjavik.

Click here for a selection of photo's taken on the trip

KEF 17/5/13

TF-BBE 737F Bluebird

LZ-MDC and LZ-MDD A320’s of WOW

VP-BPU A320 Ural Airlines landed after us and checking Flightradar24 it appeared to be on its way from Budapest to the USA – off lease?

Icelandair operate waves of arrivals at KEF, typically early morning arrivals from the Americas then most planes (between 8 and 10) leave within an hour of one another to various points in Europe. They all return within an hour mid-afternoon before all departing once again for the Americas. Seems to work and the terminal isn’t too crowded at the peak time  and with all check-in desks serving all destinations this seemed to speed things along nicely.

Outside the Icelandair arrival waves the airport is very quiet.

Our rooms at the ‘Natura’ were on the 4^th floor and at one end of the corridor a large window gave commanding views of just about the whole airfield with the visitors ramp being just below and across the runway the domestic terminal/ramp area easily viewable. The visitors ramp is used by aircraft on delivery across the Atlantic and the occupants changed most days the only exception being N955BW Metroliner which had an engine cowl missing and lots of oil under the starboard engine!

RKV 17/5/13

TF-JMG DHC8, TF-JMO/JMT Fk50’s Flugfelag Islands

N525FF C525             N684KW P.68             N955BW Metroliner    N690BH RC690

N430TW B.200           N135JM PA-46

 

RKV 18/5/13

TF-JMR Fk50 Flugfelag Islands         TF-ORA J.31 Eagle Air

TF-SYN AS332           N6RA C.425               N188ST C.560XL       N708SP Learjet

RKV 19/5/13

TF-ORD J.31 Eagle Air          TF-JMN Fk50 Flugfelag Islands

 

RKV 20/5/13

TF-JMM Fk50 Flugfelag Islands        TF-HDU AS365          OY-EKC Falcon 7x

OY-RCC Bae146 Atlantic Airways     N124PC C.206

Adjacent to the hotel is the hanger of Eagle Air. I enquired in their office if I could have a look inside and was duly taken round by the duty manager – very civilised and worth the effort:

TF-ORB C.207           TF-ORF C.404 tail-less after a landing mishap

TF-MYV PA-31           (TF-ORE) PA-31 stripped down but c/n plate gave 31-7712096

TF-ORC J.31 Eagle Air

 

KEF 21/5/13

Amongst the fleet of Icelandair B757’s was TC-ANA A319 Turkish Govt in for a fuel stop on its way from the US to home.

TF-ISL B757W took us back to GLA in just 1 hour and 41 minutes, upon arrival noted were:

D-CGEP Gulf 150 and G-DLAK C.208 Floatplane

 

The hotel ‘Natura’ is about a 25 minute walk from downtown Reykjavik although the hotel will give you a bus pass free of charge to use public transport with the bus stop being opposite the hotel and the central station is at one end of the ‘main-drag’. We didn’t mind walking as the weather wasn’t rainy and it was still light at 2300 but when we did use the bus we were the only occupants.

In conclusion, not a place to visit for number crunching but with the transatlantic ferry flights using RKV you never know what to expect and if you like the great outdoors etc. what a beautiful place Iceland is.