PLAY Airlines went from zero to $350 million in revenue in three years, did nearly everything right by its former CEO's account, and still went bankrupt — because in aviation, fuel price doesn't care about your execution.
Birgir Jónsson is the former CEO of PLAY Airlines, former deputy CEO of WOW air, former CEO of Iceland Express, and previously led a turnaround at Iceland's postal service. In this conversation he breaks down why aviation resists new talent, why airline technology is far less standardized than outsiders assume, and what actually happened when fuel prices upended PLAY's business model after the invasion of Ukraine.
What You'll Learn
- Closed industry: Aviation is a tight-knit, self-referential community that makes it structurally hard for outside talent to break in and stay.
- Culture split: Airlines run two cultures at once — crew and office — with different metrics, incentives, and worldviews, which makes company-wide alignment unusually hard.
- Standardization gap: Selling an airline seat looks like a solved e-commerce problem from the outside, but every new airline has to build its distribution and inventory stack from scratch.
- Fuel exposure: A single input cost — fuel — can erase the value of near-perfect operational execution within weeks.
- Hub model risk: PLAY's Iceland-as-a-hub strategy between Europe and the US stopped working once new aircraft types and geopolitical shocks shifted capacity onto direct Atlantic routes.
- Manager gap: Fast-scaling companies routinely promote technical experts into management roles without training them for the different skillset leadership actually requires.
- AI reality check: AI's near-term value in aviation is internal — helping new hires and cross-functional teams make sense of complex, fragmented data — more than customer-facing booking automation.
- Founder takeaway: The durable money in aviation tech has historically gone to companies solving infrastructure problems, not to the airlines themselves.
Time-Stamped Highlights
- (00:00) Introduction: an airline CEO joins the show for the first time
- (01:17) Twenty years in and out of Icelandic aviation
- (02:36) The "outsider's perspective" and why aviation resists new blood
- (04:19) Crew vs. office: the divided culture inside every airline
- (08:15) Building PLAY out of WOW air's DNA, during the pandemic
- (10:56) Why an airline is really an unfinished software stack
- (14:07) Negotiating distribution deals in a "very old school" industry
- (18:16) Legacy vs. new: why a five-year-old airline already has legacy debt
- (19:50) PLAY's bankruptcy and the fuel price that broke the model
- (21:30) Private equity, EasyJet, and why aviation takes business personally
- (29:02) Why the Iceland hub strategy stopped working
- (35:38) Scaling from zero to $350 million: growing pains and manager training
- (46:57) Where AI actually helps in aviation today
- (53:46) Closing advice for founders building in travel tech
Guest bio Birgir Jónsson is the former CEO of PLAY Airlines, where he led the Icelandic low-cost carrier from launch through rapid growth to roughly $350 million in annual revenue. He previously served as deputy CEO of WOW air, CEO of Iceland Express, and led a turnaround at Iceland's postal service, and has also worked in medical equipment and printing. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/biggijonsson/
About the Podcast The Travel Tech Podcast features long-form conversations with leaders across travel and technology, exploring how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses — with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role.
Host bio Alex Brooker is the founder of Airside Labs, an AI business that applies aviation-grade testing and compliance rigor to enterprise AI systems in regulated environments. Before founding Airside Labs, he built and scaled complex software in aviation and safety-critical domains, and he invests in early-stage technology ventures. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/
What is Travel Tech Podcast?
The Travel Tech Podcast, hosted by Alex Brooker, features long form conversations with leaders across travel and technology. The show explores how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses, with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role. Alex Brooker is an industry veteran with experience in aviation, start up to exit, and AI transformation.