Herbie555

We're going through KEF (twice) on some of WOW's promo fares. Overall, I'm happy about the price to get us LAX to Frankfurt, but given that we'll have an overnight layover and an early morning departure from KEF on our outbound leg, I'm starting to second-guess some aspects of the trip.

As much as I'd love to see Reykjavik, we decided to just stay at a local Keflavik hotel, but even with that advantage, I'm a bit worried about the departure since flight is scheduled at 06:15 and it sounds like there will be a literal thousand people all arriving at the KEF terminal at 4am for similar flights. (Apparently they lump a lot of departures into the same short blocks of time?)

People who've been through KEF recently - is it still chaos and 2+ hour queues even in the early morning? (i.e. Am I dragging my daughter out of bed at 3:30am to go stand in line at the airport until 6am?)

Out of my Element

They are expanding the airport so the crowds will not decrease. They have a number of "remote" gates for both WOW and Icelandair which are annoying as heck. And they will always group flight times to be able to use KEF as a transfer point from the US/Canada to Europe so yes, still gonna be crowded any time you go there.

:D!

This is WOW's summer schedule. Iceland will be 7 hours ahead of LAX.

You arrive at 1335 which is 6am in LAX. You don't plan to do much in Iceland so it will probably be a meal and a nap. You won't even feel sleepy at 3.30am (which is 7.30pm in LAX).

Herbie555

That's a fair point, !

I'll pack a deck of cards and two extra helpings of patience and just hope for the best. Honestly I'm more put-off by the descriptions of anarchy and everyone sitting on the floor than by the time-of-arrival.

Thanks, all!

Out of my Element

Sitting on the floor is optional. Announcements are frequent and audible, if you're paying attention. If you MUST be one of the first 35 on the plane then sure, sit on the floor. If you're not worried because you know they'll board everyone eventually you can sit further away, semi-comfortably.

henry999

Sorry, but this oft-repeated mantra does not do anyone any good. As frequent travellers know, boarding as early as possible -- especially when in sardine class -- is NOT about 'being afraid' of some imaginary glitch or goblin that is going to prevent you from getting on the plane, into your assigned seat. Rather, it is, of course, about being sure of getting space for your carry-on bag in the overhead locker, instead of (a) having to sacrifice most of the already-too-little legroom by storing it underneath the seat in front of you, or, even worse, (b) having to gate-check such a bag, with the concomitant delay upon arrival and even danger (of something going wrong) that that entails.

_kurt

IME the complaints about crowding at KEF are a bit exaggerated. Recently we arrived at 14:45 for a 16:45 flight. Took our time, stood in line for a VAT refund, etc, and still had 30 minutes in the Saga lounge. This was with checked bags. The FI self-tagging worked quite well and there was no line to drop them off. I believe this service is also available for WOW passengers.

If, on the other hand, you need to see a human to get a boarding pass or check a bag, the lines can indeed be insane. 3 hours before flight might be necessary.

Zembla

This.

I have been departing and arriving from KEF recently and in this summer. And I also had connections there recently. Yes, it was crowded, but in all cases it went smooth and efficient. In all cases I was flying with FI. Longest queue I was in was this summer 20 minutes for check in of an early morning departure. The queue looked dramatically huge but it actually went surprisingly quick.

However, my brother arrived this summer on WW and had to wait well over an hour before his baggage arrived....mine arrived in 10 minutes with FI. But I doubt that such handling delay is normal practice.

Actually, the Schengen part of the airport is very pleasant, with an excellent shopping area and food court. Non-Schengen is being upgraded and expanded at the moment.

Out of my Element

Whatever. I've boarded early and I've boarded late at KEF and there's been room for my carryon in the overhead either way. You use your mantra, I'll use mine.

Herbie555

Reporting back after our trip.

Things at KEF went mostly very smoothly. The airport is clearly still under massive renovation, so one's arrival/departure experience seems to be dictated partially by which terminal you end up in, etc.

I will say that WOW Air still seems to be doing the thing where it will schedule multiple flights to arrive and depart all from the same terminal in a small amount of time. For our return trip there were flights leaving for Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston (?) and LAX all within a 1-hour window and all at adjacent gates. The net effect was a pretty nasty snarl for the middle 30 minutes where boarding lines from one gate ran into boarding lines for the others and nobody was quite sure where to be. We were glad to be on the last flight out of that cluster, so we had the "luxury" of standing back while it sorted itself out before our flight needed to board.

I think the other thing that adds confusion is that the times given by Wow are alternately the Final-Boarding time or the Wheels-up time, which means that the first call for boarding is something like 30-45 minutes earlier. I know there were many a family caught off guard with one person in a shop or at the WC when boarding was called, which also seemed to stress a lot of people out.

Otherwise, though, it was a "normal" airport with all the normal airport issues.

Out of my Element

WOW does that, so does Icelandair. It makes it possible for both airlines to bring in a ton of US/Canada flights and then get those folks onward to Europe in a 45 minute to 2 hour window. If they spread out the flights they wouldn't be able to do nearly as many connections in a time frame acceptable to the flyers.

It does stink for folks whose destination is Iceland, though.

Herbie555

Yes, I understand the temporal grouping. I'm baffled by the physical grouping, though. Given the (now expanded) size of the airport, even before the work is done, there seem to be more than enough gates to not need to launch a half dozen flights from four gates all as physically close together as possible. Even moving just two of those flights to gates a few doors down, even in the same terminal, would solve a LOT of the issues.

kaszeta

One thing I like about KEF is that I seldom have any delays at passport control there. Arriving from a US flight, it's one of the easiest Schengen airports I've been to. And the passport lines are usually short enough that even with a relatively short layover on the Non-Schengen side, I'll go through passport control to get the better food and beer options on that side (and once, famously, going through passport control just because I could see that that the queue for the loo was shorter over there...)

I don't mind KEF that much. Indeed, I think fully half of the stamps in my passport are from KEF.