Keflavík International Airport

Keflavik Airport was built by the United States military during the Second World War. It opened in 1943 as Meeks Field, named for a young American pilot killed in Iceland. Its spot on the North Atlantic made it vital for flying planes over to Europe. It stayed important through the Cold War, serving as a base for patrols watching for enemy submarines in the gap between Greenland, Iceland, and Britain.

The United States handed the airport to Iceland in 1946, but returned again in 1951. Civilian and military flights shared the site for decades. Civil traffic grew because Iceland sits almost between North America and Europe, and Icelandic airlines built a business on stopping there. A civil terminal, named for Leifur Eiriksson, opened in 1987 to keep airline passengers apart from the military base. American forces left in 2006.

Keflavik's biggest change came in the 2010s. Icelandair built a model of connecting transatlantic flights through Iceland. Combined with the fast rise and 2019 collapse of budget airline WOW air, passenger numbers were pushed from around two million to more than nine million. That growth helped turn tourism into one of Iceland's largest industries. The terminal has been expanded repeatedly ever since to keep up with demand.

Keflavik has two runways, 10/28 and 01/19, laid out to handle the strong, shifting North Atlantic winds that shape daily operations. A single terminal, extended in several phases with new piers and a bigger arrivals hall, is built around connecting traffic. Icelandair schedules a morning bank of North American arrivals meeting European departures, then an afternoon wave running the other way, keeping connection times short.

PLAY runs a similar but smaller model, connecting passengers the same way. The airport sits roughly 50 kilometers from Reykjavik, across a stretch of lava field. High winds and volcanic activity on the nearby Reykjanes peninsula are recurring concerns for planners.