#1 Icelandair: an Airline. Or, an odd topic for a blog post yes but here it is anyway for reasons you will see

In this past year, I've been on 11 or 12 different airlines and it occurred to me while flying Iceland Air for the first time last week, that this is unlike any other airline I've flown with. One might think that they're all pretty interchangeable with a few differences. Some have better cookies (Aer Lingus), some serve you ice cream between London and Edmonton (Air Canada), some like to change your gates and make you run through airports at the very last minute and blame you for not hearing the gate change announcement (Delta), some have flight crews that are impossibly good looking and know it (Air France) and some have planes that are very, very orange  which is a little tough to take after an overnight trans-Atlantic flight (Lufthansa). But aside from these fairly minor differences, they're all pretty similar because their main function is to get you from destination to destination safely and efficiently with only minor damage to your luggage. They'd also like you to feel loyalty to their airline but they know we're fickle and easily swayed so they don't really push it.  Icelandair also has this agenda but they have something else they want to do: they want you to fall in love with Iceland. They want you to visit it, learn about it, and love it.  And they want you to tell your friends about how amazing Iceland is.

Here's what's brilliant about Icelandair. This is, I should add, the airline for a country with a population smaller than many Canadian cities. You can fly Icelandair out of Toronto to a remarkably wide range of destinations. People on our flight were heading all over Europe: we were going to Helsinki. Their prices were reasonable but the big draw is this: for no extra charge, you can add a stopover of up to a week in Iceland.  This has always struck me as an ingenius way to get people to visit a small island country in the north Atlantic that most people know little about. When I flew Icelandair last week I realized the stopover is just part of their brilliant plan. From the minute I stepped onto the plane, I was suddenly intrigued with Iceland. Suddenly, it wasn't the bonus stop on a different trip, it was a special, magical, intriguing destination.

The marketing of Iceland wasn't an add on: they worked it into all elements of the flight organically. As we walked onto the plane, we were each handed a bottle of Iceland water with a label telling us about Iceland's water. The headrest covers had Icelandic vocabulary lessons. The coffee cups told you that there are 14 different words for cup in Icelandic and listed them. The napkin mentioned the Icelandic word for napkin and explained why 'serviette' has become the preferred term. The creamers had pretty cute Icelanders on them. 

The TVs showed a montage of images of Iceland interspersed with Icelandic trivia (did you know 30% of Icelanders have university degrees and that 60% of the population believes in elves? It occurs to me to wonder what percentage of the population believes elves have university degrees).  TV programming had shows about Iceland and it made you excited about going. On the plane, you could purchase tickets to the attractions you just learned about. It may seem heavy-handed in a Disney-esque or Graceland-ish sort of way but it wasn't. They've created for me a mystique about the place. They taught me just enough about their country to make me want to know more, see more, do more.  Already I'm regretting that we booked a short, few days stop and I have been thinking 'hmm... maybe next year...' This might be the first time I've thought about booking a second trip to a place I've yet to visit based on a flight and an airport. Well done, Icelandair, well done.