Icelandair vs KLM

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, and where each of these two sits among every carrier we price, on seat and on fare, is on The Best Airlines to Fly to Europe.

Where they actually differ

• Seat: KLM

  0/10 on the 737 MAX / 757 (Saga Premium) against 10/10 on the 787-9 / 787-10 / 777 (World Business Class).

• IFE: KLM

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

• Value: Icelandair

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

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:

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.

KLM: 2-2-2 lie-flat: the window seat requires stepping over a neighbor.

Common questions

Is Icelandair or KLM better to Europe?

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

Which is cheaper, Icelandair or KLM?

On the 78 routes where both were priced for the same week (November 8–14, 2026), Icelandair was cheaper on 66 and KLM on 12. 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. KLM scores 10/10 on the 787-9 / 787-10 / 777 (World Business Class) and 5/10 on the A330-200 / A330-300. 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.