Icelandair - which has been named airline of the year - has come on leaps and bounds since its first international flight took passengers to Largs in 1945.

Largs obviously has strong links to Scandinavia, thanks to the conflict with King Haakon and his vikings in 1263. It is interesting to note that Iceland had come under the rule of Norway one year earlier, so technically the link with Iceland existed 750 years ago.

The memories of the Icelandair Catalina flying boat (which was the airline’s only type of aircraft at the time) were sparked last week when the company was named airline of the year at the SPAA Travel Awards, Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport, said: “Icelandair has served the Scottish market since the 1940’s, and next year the airline will mark its 70th anniversary of its first commercial flight from Scotland (Largs) with four passengers and four crew members on-board.

“We have developed a strong partnership with Icelandair, and the airline has performed extremely well, successfully doubling their capacity over the last three years. In what was a huge year for Glasgow, Icelandair also really stepped up to the mark and added extra capacity for the Ryder Cup.

Andrés Jónsson, General Manager of Icelandair in UK said “We were delighted to win this award for the very first time in the awards history.”