Icey 757
Believe me the reason that Iceland Air was brought in is not cost driven .....
At the current time availability of suitable A/C with the correct permits and permissions to operate the Saudi routes is very very limited .
Those carriers who had suitable aircraft didnt have the corerct permissions to operate to saudi , and other carriers who did have correct permissions diddnt have aircraft available.
Many man hours were spent trying to source coverage for the late A330 both in house and externally.
not quite as easy as you might think !