American vs Icelandair

Best product each one flies

Scored on what can be verified. Service, food and ground recovery are absent deliberately: they need someone in the seat, and they live in the reviews rather than here.

One caveat on the Value line, stated rather than buried: Value is computed from business fares, and a carrier with too few of them does not get a Value score at all. Where you see a dash, we have fewer than three priced business routes for that airline and did not want to invent a figure from one or two — so its product score is the mean of three dimensions rather than four, and it is not directly comparable to a score built on hundreds of fares. The airlines with the most fares behind them are named on the business-class ranking.

Dimension by dimension

• Seat: American

  10/10 on the 787-9P (Flagship Suite) against 0/10 on the 737 MAX / 757 (Saga Premium).

• IFE: American

  Screens, connectivity and power: 8/10 against 4/10.

• Lounge & bags: level

  What the fare includes before you board: 10/10 against 10/10.

• Value: Icelandair

  Median premium over the cheapest carrier on the same route: 2/10 against 10/10.

Where both were priced on the same dates

Every fare is November 8–14, 2026, so a difference between two rows is a difference between two airlines and nothing else. These are economy fares, while the cabin scores above describe the business product — read them as how each airline prices against its competitors, not as what its business seat costs.

What happens if the aircraft swaps

Both carriers are paying-the-same-fare-either-way propositions on some frames. The worst product each one flies:

American: Reverse herringbone, direct aisle access from every seat, no privacy door.

Icelandair: Saga Premium is a wide recliner, not a lie-flat business class: roughly 20 inches wide with about 5 inches of recline. Closer to US domestic first class than to a transatlantic business seat, and the shorter Iceland sectors are what it is built for.

Common questions

Is American or Icelandair better to Europe?

American scores 7.5/10 against Icelandair at 6/10 on seat, screens, lounge and fare. On the four dimensions we can verify, American wins 2 and Icelandair wins 1. Service and food are not scored here because they cannot be read off a spec sheet.

Which is cheaper, American or Icelandair?

On the 72 routes where both were priced for the same week (November 8–14, 2026), American was cheaper on 9 and Icelandair on 63. Every pair of fares is the same departure and return date in the same cabin, so the difference is the airline rather than the dates or the cabin.

Does the aircraft change the answer?

Yes. American scores 10/10 on the 787-9P (Flagship Suite) and 8/10 on the 777-300ER / 787 (Flagship Business). Check the equipment on your date before deciding.

Has Jon flown either of these?

Neither, so this page is product facts and fares only. Any review we publish of either will be labeled Researched until that changes.