Difficulty communicating with Icelandair

My cousin, Robert, and I have always used Icelandair (800/223-5500, www.icelandair.us) to travel between the US and Europe. Their Saga Club (business class) is excellent, with wide seats, good food and first-rate service. And the airfare in that cabin class is somewhat affordable at about $3,500 per person, round trip, from Denver to most of their gateways in Europe (Frankfurt, Stockholm, Paris, etc.).

We live in Arizona, and the closest Icelandair gateway to us is Denver. Accordingly, on the airline’s website, we booked a flight from Denver to Keflavík (Iceland) to Frankfurt (Germany) to start off a European vacation cruising down the Rhine River.

We always allow several days’ leeway in plans like this, so we booked a hotel in Denver for two nights prior to going to Europe. We like Hotel Monaco (1717 Champa St., Denver, CO; 303/296-1717, www.monaco-denver.com), which has a gourmet-class Italian restaurant and a very nice happy hour every night.

Through Icelandair’s website, we had booked our flight for June 15, 2014. It was scheduled to depart in the afternoon, arriving in Keflavík for a few hours’ stopover the next morning. Then we’d fly to Frankfurt, arriving around 1 p.m. 

For the two nights before our river cruise, we also prebooked a nice hotel in Frankfurt near the boat dock: the InterContinental Frankfurt Hotel (Wilhelm-Leuschner-Str. 43, Frankfurt 60329, GERMANY; phone, in the US, 888/424-6835, www.intercontinental.com). The nonrefundable, nonchangeable room rate was about $543. 

Upon our arrival in Denver, I rechecked the departure time on Icelandair’s website. The Denver-Keflavík segment showed as “Confirmed,” but I was shocked to find that the Keflavík-Frankfurt segment had been canceled. Icelandair had never called us on my cell phone about the cancellation; however, they did send an email saying that that segment was canceled and asking us to call Icelandair at their US telephone number.

(Online, using our Icelandair record locator number, I found that our account still showed all our itinerary flight segments as “confirmed,” while elsewhere on the website the Keflavík-Frankfurt flight was shown as canceled.)

I tried many times to get through to Icelandair, but the automated system simply put me on hold, where I waited for an hour before being disconnected. After many redials, it became obvious that there was no way to get through to them, even at 3 a.m. Denver time.

We thought we could just drive to Denver International Airport by rental car to speak to a real person at their ticket counter, but, once there, we found there was no Icelandair agent at Denver. The airline apparently uses contracted agents to process baggage, and these agents had no access to Icelandair’s reservation system and knew nothing about the cancellation of flights.

We then decided to try calling their offices in Reykjavik (+354 5050 100), and after many tries and being put on hold for long periods, we got through to an English-speaking agent. We were told that all of the problems were due to a one-day work stoppage in Iceland. 

We were told to “just fly to Keflavík” and stay at a hotel there, and on the next day (June 17) we would be rebooked through Saga Club to Frankfurt. We were told to keep all of our receipts and that we’d be reimbursed.

We did as we were advised, staying at the Bed & Breakfast Keflavík Airport (Valhallarbraut 761, Keflavík, Iceland; phone +354 426 5000, www.bbkeflavik.com) for about $193. This airport hotel is on the old NATO military base in Keflavík. It looks like military barracks, but the facilities were quite comfortable and the staff was very friendly. There was a good pizza restaurant in the complex.

Icelandair passengers were on their own in Keflavík. The airline made no ongoing reservations for anyone. At this time, we tried to change our hotel booking in Frankfurt, but Expedia would not change our nonrefundable booking. 

Ultimately, we arrived in Frankfurt one day later than planned, on June 17 at about 12 noon. The extra expenses we incurred totaled $794.

When we got home after our trip, we sent all of the receipts to Iceland­air, but we heard nothing in the next weeks. On July 5 we emailed the airline and got an automated reply saying they would respond in 30 days. They did not.

In desperation, I found the email address for Icelandair’s CEO and wrote to him on Sept. 28. Before sending the email, I translated my message into Icelandic (with the help of Google Translate and my own basic knowledge of the language).

I received a reply (in both Icelandic and English) from “Viktoria,” who said that they were processing many thousands of similar requests, which was why it was taking so long to reply. Finally, about three months later, my credit card statement showed that I had received full reimbursement.

The Icelandair employees’ work stoppage and our being unable to communicate in any way with anyone, either before or soon after the incident, caused us a good deal of anxiety. The airline needs to have some way to personally communicate with people. Ultimately, however, we were reimbursed for our extra expenses, which is more than could be said about some other airlines.

In thinking about this incident, I need to remark that Icelandair’s air service was excellent. Also, Iceland, itself, is terrific, as are the Icelanders. We’ve stayed in Iceland several times, and the natural beauty of the place is amazing.

TOM HEYDT

Scottsdale, AZ

ITN emailed a copy of Mr. Heydt’s letter to Icelandair and received the following reply.

Unfortunately, the strike during this time was beyond our control and did affect thousands of passengers. Our customer relations (department) did what they could to accommodate Mr. Heydt and apologizes for the delay in resolving his issue. It did take longer than it should have, and his inability to reach us should not have been. 

However, as Mr. Heydt mentioned, he was fully refunded what he claimed, and we thank him for his patience and understanding.

We were happy to hear that, aside from this unfortunate issue beyond our control, Mr. Heydt had a pleasant trip and found our services to be “excellent!” We look forward to welcoming him aboard again under less stressful circumstances and once again thank him for his support and understanding!

MICHAEL RAUCHEISEN, Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Boston Office USA Marketing, Icelandair, 1900 Crown Colony Dr., Quincy, MA 02169