Keflavik International Airport

Keflavik International is Iceland's principal gateway and, by volume, one of the most consequential mid-Atlantic stopover airports in the world. Sitting on the Reykjanes peninsula 50 km (31 mi) southwest of Reykjavik, KEF is positioned almost exactly on the great-circle path between continental Europe and the densely populated eastern seaboard of North America — a geographic accident that Icelandair and, previously, WOW air built into a full transatlantic connection model that routes US and Canadian traffic through Iceland on a single fare. The airport handled roughly 7.8M passengers in 2024 against a national population of 390,000, which gives Iceland one of the highest airport-to-population ratios on earth. Icelandair operates its entire long-haul and European network from KEF, with PLAY providing a low-cost transatlantic overlay and 49 other carriers serving seasonal leisure markets to 109 destinations across North America, Europe, and the eastern Mediterranean. Two asphalt runways (10/28 and 01/19, each approximately 10,000 ft / 3,050 m) accommodate widebodies including 767s, 787s, and A330s at an elevation of 171 ft (52 m). KEF's terminal — the Leifur Eiriksson Air Terminal — has been expanded repeatedly since the 2000s and now includes north and south piers with mixed Schengen and non-Schengen processing, a critical feature for its connecting model. The airport is also a recognized alternate for transatlantic ETOPS diversions thanks to its latitude (63.98 N), long runways, and 24-hour operation. During winter northern-lights season and summer peak, KEF routinely runs at capacity, and a multi-phase expansion is progressively adding gates, taxiways, and a new east pier.