PLAY Airlines Pulls Out of U.S. Market, Will Go Private and Shift Strategy
ID 313390329 | Air © Pavol Stredansky | Dreamstime.com
PLAY Airlines is ending its U.S. operations and overhauling its business model after years of consistent financial losses. The Iceland-based ultra low cost carrier launched in 2021 with ambitions to connect North America and Europe via Reykjavik. That model, closely resembling the failed strategy of WOW Air, is now officially being scrapped.
PLAY ends all U.S. flights
As of the winter 2025 season, PLAY will discontinue all flights to the United States. The airline currently serves Baltimore (BWI), Boston (BOS), and New York Stewart (SWF), but those routes will end between September and October 2025.
This follows a gradual pullback from its initial ambitions in North America, which were never profitable. While the carrier had hoped to replicate Icelandair’s hub model at Keflavik, ultra low cost competition and transatlantic economics never aligned in PLAY’s favor.
The airline will go private
In addition to pulling out of the transatlantic market, PLAY’s two largest shareholders — including CEO Birgir Jónsson and Vice Chairman Einar Örn Ólafsson — have proposed taking the airline private. A formal offer has been made to purchase all outstanding shares at 1.0 ISK per share, compared to the current price of 0.8 ISK.
PLAY’s stock has lost more than 97% of its value since its IPO, and the privatization effort aims to give the company more flexibility to execute a strategic overhaul without public market pressures.
New strategy: Icelandic leisure + ACMI leasing
PLAY will maintain a fleet of 10 Airbus A320neo family aircraft but will deploy them differently. Four aircraft will continue flying leisure-focused routes out of Keflavik to high-demand destinations in Europe, especially markets with strong VFR (visiting friends and relatives) traffic. The other six jets will be transferred to a new Malta-based wet lease (ACMI) operation, serving other airlines on a contract basis.
The ACMI segment is seen as a way to generate stable, lower-risk revenue by providing aircraft and crews to carriers that need temporary capacity.
A repeat of WOW Air’s failure
PLAY’s collapse in the transatlantic market mirrors what happened with WOW Air, which ceased operations in 2019. Many of PLAY’s executives, including its CEO, previously held leadership roles at WOW. Despite this, they believed the model could work again with a new brand and some tweaks.
It didn’t. PLAY’s results since inception have shown consistent losses and falling investor confidence. The decision to exit long-haul flying and focus on more achievable goals is long overdue.
Bottom line
PLAY Airlines will end all U.S. flying this fall and plans to go private in an effort to reorient its business model. With a simplified fleet and a shift toward Iceland-based leisure flying and ACMI leasing, the airline is hoping to stabilize operations after years of missteps. Whether that’s enough to turn the company profitable remains to be seen, but the transatlantic experiment is officially over.
