Ten Years After: How The World Has Changed

"THE FAIREST fares of all to Europe, $388 direct from New York to Luxembourg" - Icelandair advertisement in The New York Times

For New Yorkers, the Icelandic national airline offered a cut-price route to Europe. When tangled aviation regulations controlled air fares across the Atlantic, travellers could save cash by touching down en route at the Nato air base at Keflavik, southern Iceland.

The trouble was: no big European country would allow its national airline's earnings to be jeopardised by a third party. So Icelandair's European terminus was Luxembourg. The Grand Duchy is, in fact, well-placed for access to the core of Western Europe, with easy links to Germany, France, Belgium and even Switzerland. Dedicated British bargain-hunters, too, made their way by bus and ferry to Luxembourg on a highly convoluted journey to the US.

By 1989, when the fare of $388 (pounds 250) return was advertised, many of the old aviation rules had fallen by the free-enterprise wayside; the same fare was available on British Airways for non-stop London-New York flights that called at neither Luxembourg nor Iceland.

A decade later, Icelandair still offers bargains across the Atlantic - this time direct from both London and Glasgow. It serves six North American destinations, from Florida to Nova Scotia. And, in line with other airlines, off-peak fares are even lower than 10 years ago.