Municipalities in East Iceland are preparing a joint challenge to changes in the Loftbr\u00fa flight subsidy, warning that replacing its percentage discount with a fixed payment will increase costs for travellers in the region, Iceland Review reports.<\/p>\n
Under the announced arrangement, Loftbr\u00fa\u2019s 40% discount will be replaced from January 1 by a subsidy of ISK 7,000 for each eligible flight leg. Eligible residents will continue to receive support for six one-way flights annually.<\/p>\n
Ragnar Sigur\u00f0sson, chair of the Association of Municipalities in East Iceland, told R\u00daV that regional associations and municipalities were preparing a joint letter to Parliament\u2019s Budget Committee. He estimated that the change would increase the average amount paid by travellers on East Iceland routes by approximately 25\u201330%.<\/p>\n
The government announced the arrangement on Friday, saying a fixed payment would make expenditure more predictable. Ragnar disputed the suggestion that residents could avoid a reduction in support by booking cheaper tickets earlier. He said fares below ISK 17,500 were rarely available on East Iceland routes.<\/p>\n
He also stressed the purpose of many journeys, saying residents frequently use the programme to reach specialist and essential services in the capital region. That makes the level of support relevant to travel for services as well as other trips.<\/p>\n
According to government figures cited in the report, approximately 62,000 residents qualify for Loftbr\u00fa, and about 80,000 subsidised journeys were taken in 2025. The programme has an annual budget of ISK 600 million.<\/p>\n
The planned joint request will ask the government to reconsider the measure, bringing East Iceland municipalities\u2019 concerns about passenger costs before Parliament\u2019s Budget Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
East Iceland leaders say a subsidy change will leave travellers paying more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}