High airfares to Europe in summer 2016 getting you down?

Yup, it's true. At this moment, round trip airfares to Europe from the U.S. West Coast are pricing in the $1,850 to $2,000 range on the major U.S. carriers. (This was actually the case in the summer of 2015 when one of our travelers paid better than $2,000 for a one-stop routing from Portland, OR to Munich with a return to Portland from Lisbon.)

Options? As of now the best deals to Europe from the U.S. West Coast appear to be on Icelandair. Icelandair's routings are showing up about $300 cheaper than the big U.S. carriers (United, Delta, American).

For example as of today:

• Portland-Seattle-Reykjavik-Munich RT on Icelandair for June 14 departure and July 21 return in 2016 is pricing at $1,582
• Portland-Reykjavik-Munich RT on Icelandair is $1,655 (using June 15 departure from Portland since Icelandair doesn't serve Portland everyday).
• United Airlines for the routing Portland-Houston-Munich RT is pricing at $1,872

Icelandair serves the following U.S. cities with non-stop flights to Keflavik Airport (Reykjavik) from where connections are available to many European destinations:
PORTLAND, OR
SEATTLE
DENVER
MINNEAPOLIS
CHICAGO
BOSTON
NEW YORK (JFK and NEWARK)
WASHINGTON DC (DULLES)
ORLANDO
ANCHORAGE

You can check out options are Icelandair's website at http://www.icelandair.com/

Or use the ITA Matrix (Google-owned) at http://matrix.itasoftware.com