Reimagining ancillary services: Icelandair’s journey to elevate the passenger experience

Icelandair serves over 50 destinations and plays a crucial role in connecting Europe and North America. Since launching its branded eSIM solution as a Powered by Breeze partner, the airline has been providing passengers with a new way to stay connected.

Icelandair saw eSIM as a golden opportunity to surprise and delight passengers and elevate their experience in destination. The main objectives were to:

• Enhance the end-to-end customer journey experience
• Provide a relevant product with great benefits for the passenger
• Tap into a new innovative and exciting ancillary revenue stream

The idea of venturing into the world of telco was a daunting one. Barriers to success included:

• No prior knowledge of the industry
• Limited in-house tech resources
• Lack of customer awareness around eSIM technology
• Long industry timelines associated with launching new products

Icelandair found eSIM Go not only outstanding in terms of expertise and knowledge but also flexibility. Compared with competitors, eSIM Go stood out with their capabilities to:

• Deliver a fully branded white label solution
• Handle all the tech and development
• Provide round the clock customer service and support
• Educate customers on eSIM
• Make the service available in the Icelandic language
• Set out a clear pricing strategy that put customers first
• Get them to market in a matter of weeks
• Be flexible with timings and work at their pace

“From the outset, eSIM Go demonstrated a level of experience and confidence that set them apart. As Iceland’s national carrier, having the service available in our language was really important to us. The white label solution enabled us to adapt our own storefront and add the special Icelandair touch. Since we are not experts in eSIM data bundle pricing, we greatly appreciate that eSIM Go optimizes the pricing and will continue to adjust the price points as needed. And like us, they really cared about putting the customer first.”

Icelandair champions customer choice. Because eSIM is a new concept, the airline wanted to give passengers the opportunity to dip their toes in first, then top up if they wanted.

Touch points

eSIM has now been integrated into multiple customer touch points, including:

• Website
• Mobile app
• Pre-flight emails
• Support channels
• In-flight entertainment

The eSIM service has been a part of the airline’s IFE program since May 2024, with a spot on the boarding loop on every flight, throughout the entire fleet.

“Rather than interrupting the flight booking process, we inform customers about eSIM after their tickets have been purchased. This approach allows them time to discover a valuable new service that can enhance their overall travel experience.”

• Strong retention rates with 18% of customers coming back to buy bigger bundles
• Support page has been a surprisingly effective tool for driving and converting traffic
• Majority of eSIM purchases originate from US

As more passengers embrace digital mobile, sales are expected to continue to increase, particularly during peak seasons.

“We’re committed to educating our passengers about eSIM and expect that in the very near future it will be a standard part of the flying experience. By partnering with eSIM Go we’ve been able to add genuine value to our passengers through something they’ve never tried before, and educate them about how it works. It’s completely changed the way people think about ancillary services and we’re looking forward to seeing what the future holds.”