Iceland KEF: How much time between flights on separate tickets
 

(I posted this in the Air Travel forum, but since this is specific to Iceland, I thought I might find more opinions here in the Iceland forum.)

I posted recently about breaking up an itinerary on separate tickets to save money (thanks for the responses there). I am planning an itinerary that takes us from DEN through KEF and on to CPH.

If I book separate tickets (r/t DEN-KEF, then KEF-CPH), it works out $500 cheaper (total for 3 people) than booking it all on one reservation. So the incentive is there to do this.

Of course, for the first leg, KEF is our final destination as far as Icelandair is concerned, so the risk of making the connection is on us. If you were doing this, what minimum time would you allow between the scheduled arrival time of the first flight and departure time of the second?

I've read a number of threads here that make it sound like this would be an easy connection to make. On separate tickets, however, we'd have to collect checked bags, go through passport control, security and re-check bags, etc. I'm unsure how much time to budget for all this; we've only been through KEF once, and it was our final destination on that trip.

Here are some of the options available to us, with a scheduled arrival time of 9:30 AM:

• 11:10 AM (seems risky on separate tickets, though this is the onward flight if we book on one reservation)
• 4:45 PM
• 6:55 PM

We have flown through KEF a few times and it was pretty painless, but I would also be nervous about making second leg due to circumstances out of your control. Instead, what about making a trip to the Blue Lagoon (provided you've never visited before)? There is an available transfer between the airport and the Blue Lagoon and baggage storage appears to be available at the Blue Lagoon.

Just a thought! Have a great trip.

KEF can be tricky. They have been making improvements and expanding which is certainly needed but going through there last July, it still seemed crowded. They have greatly improved check in by having what I call open check in .All stand in same line but whichever agent is up next takes the next in line, no standing in specific line for your departure. Amazed at how much more efficient this strategy was.

BTW we flew from DEN last summer on Iceland Air. Flight was due in at 9:15, but flight was about 45 minutes late.

I would not even consider the 11:10 flight.

If this were me, I would opt for the latest flight. When we flew through KEF on our way home, there was a strike o some kind and it took forever as there were only 2 agents working. Of course that is not the norm, but I wouldn't want to get stuck. I think spending time at the Blue Lagoon would be a nice way to kill the time that day.

I've been through KEF four times over the past few years and each time was a nightmare (we also left from DEN). We were connecting from Iceland Air to Iceland Air and that was stressful enough, I wouldn't consider doing so on separate tickets unless I had loads of time.

Having said that, spending loads of time in an airport like KEF wouldn't be my first choice either.

I find it interesting that you want to fly on separate tickets - we flew Iceland Air only because they offered better fares to Europe via KEF than flying directly on other airlines. Perhaps the demise of their competitor WOW has resulted in higher fares.

And FWIW, Iceland Air has been known to cancel flights - we had to change our entire trip by several days - TWICE - due to their schedule changes.

You'll find the gory details in the first few paragraphs here:

https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...rland-1663446/

If you have your boarding pass for your connecting flight to Copenhagen ready when you check-in in Denver you could try to get your bags checked through to the final destination. Or ask Icelandair in advance if you can do that.
In that case, you would not have to collect and re-check your bags and could transfer airside.

Definitely! But we are doing this on the return. It's the outbound flight where we need to figure out whether the savings of booking separate tickets is worth the potential delay risk.

The reason is because, for the multicity itinerary we're planning, the exact itinerary booked with separate tickets is $500 cheaper than the exact same itinerary booked all together as one reservation. Who knows why? Arcane air fare algorithms....

Wow, just wow. That is some serious jerking around that they put you through. I have to wonder (hope) that something like that is uncommon, if not rare. But who knows, and no one can predict.... Certainly pushes us toward the "one reservation" side of the debate.

And an excerpt from the trip report where we flew Iceland Air the first time...

Having learned that a sandwich in Zurich is less expensive than a sandwich in Iceland or on Iceland Air (5.70 CHF vs. 1.1 Krona), we picked up two each, one for now and one for the second, longer leg of our trip from KEF-DEN (Iceland Air doesn’t provide food, although they do sell limited items onboard).

As we worked our way to the gate, they announced our flight would be departing 30 minutes late. So I did what any self-respecting chocoholic would do, I made a beeline to the Confiserie Sprüngli and ordered two mugs of decadent hot chocolate – oh-so-delicious (15 CHF); a fattening end to a wonderful trip.

Our flight to KEF was smooth, a very good thing in my book, but we arrived 40 minutes late...eating up most of our 55 minute connection time. Most everyone on the plane seemed to be in the same situation. The crew assured us we’d all make our connecting flights, and gave us Fast Passes, permission to jump the queue at Immigration; they worked a treat, we were through in minutes; thankfully there was no additional security.

We entered a large room full of transit passengers – I mean FULL. Every seat was taken, people were sitting and dozing on the floors, luggage was strewn everywhere; it was chaos. I’d read that KEF’s international visitor numbers had doubled in the last five years; I believe it.

Stress was high, my knee was unhappy; Bill grabbed the backpacks and gave me a hobbling head start; we hurried through the airport, dodging people and luggage, jostling, excusing and apologizing, arriving at our gate just as our plane was scheduled to depart...and came to a screeching halt. We joined the short queue of passengers, and proceeded to wait for 15 minutes for a bus to take us stragglers to our plane. The crew was right; we made it; I suspect this is business as usual for KEF.

You posted in a different thread that your trip was booked on separate tickets, but despite the challenges you faced with delays, it sounds like Icelandair accommodated you (with fast passes, etc.) as if your flights were on the same reservation. Is my understanding correct? (I'm assuming by "separate tickets," you mean on different reservations.)

You're right, we booked three one way fares on the first trip, all on Iceland Air, but we also planned to stay in Iceland - do I assume correctly that you're not spending any time in Iceland?

We kept hearing about the low airfare deals on Iceland Air, but after much research we discovered that these only seem to apply to 3-7 day Iceland stop-overs. After seven days, the fares increase substantially. We wanted to stay longer than seven days, and we also wanted to incorporate another visit to Switzerland, so we booked three one-way tickets, which was less expensive than booking all flights on one ticket.

DEN-KEF, KEF-ZRH, ZRH-DEN via KEF

What I meant by my comment above is that many people visit Iceland as a short (free) stopover or just connect through Iceland, and in that case the fares tend to be less than buying separate tickets, but only for stays in Iceland of up to seven days. This was before the demise of WOW though, which I suspect has resulted in increased demand, and therefore increased fares for Iceland Air.

On the second trip, we just connected in Iceland, we didn't spend any time there, so we booked on a single ticket (reservation). This ticket was a lot less expensive than had we booked on Lufthansa which would have meant a connection in Frankfurt or Munich.

And I misspoke, as there are no direct flights from Denver to Zurich (that I'm aware of), so we'd have had to connect somewhere. At the time, KEF seemed as good a place as any.

The Fast Pass was issued for the connecting flight through KEF that was on the same ticket (reservation) for ZRH-KEF-DEN. .

It seems that it is Icelandair DEN-KEF and Icelandair KEF-CPH, just on separate reservations but same airline all the way through.

1110 Icelandair
1625 Icelandair (couldn't see a 4.45pm flight but I don't know your specific date)
1855 Icelandair

You mentioned the final destination as far as Icelandair is concerned is KEF, but the onward flight is also Icelandair? Did you find a cheaper fare on a codeshare carrier?

If the same airline, when you check-in, you can ask for your luggage to be checked-thru to CPH, give them the booking reference of the KEF-CPH flight so they can tag the bag. And if you do online check-in 24 hours beforehand, you have your boarding pass already. Or if that's not possible, the check-in agent at DEN might be able to check you in for the KEF-CPH flights otherwise they can't send your luggage. This would eliminate the need to go landside and stand in line for check-in/bag drop etc.
Furthermore, when you make your reservations, you can call Icelandair reservations and ask them to cross refer the 2 separate bookings. And of course, you can call Icelandair to check the above info before you start to make the bookings, in case Icelandair does something different/won't do this.

I've done this type of thing plenty of times before, separate tickets on the same airline. I've even had sched changes on one booking which messed up the connection time on the next booking but the airline changed the second flight on the other reservation for me without charge. Not saying all airlines are this accommodating.

I've had enough flights greatly delayed or cancelled, for weather, strikes or whatever, that I would be very reluctant to make a connection on separate tickets. I have occasionally flown to the US on separate tickets, but I've always spent the night at my first destination, usually London. But then my second flight would be intercontinental, so missing it would be very costly.

In your case, I would check the cost of a last-minute onward flight. If it's considerably less than $500, it might be worth the risk, especially if there's no burning need to be in Copenhagen the same day.

In any case, get a later flight, try to check in on line for the second flight, and try to have your luggage tagged for Copenhagen.

On the other hand, consider the possibility that your first flight arrives on time, or even early, and that you allowed five hours for the connection. It would probably be worth $500 to me not to have to wait around an airport for six hours after an overnight flight.

On a related note, Skyscanner.net sometimes proposes itineraries on two separate tickets, and offers connection insurance at a reasonable additional cost. My daughter had to use this once, and it worked well.

There have been some very useful comments (thank you, everyone!), but this might be the best one yet. Very good point.