The airline announced that it would lease Airbus A321s configured with 200 passenger seats and would start flights with two aircraft to six European destinations in the winter of 2019–2020.

[6][8] By late 2019, Play planned to initially serve six destinations in Europe: Alicante, Tenerife, London, Paris, Copenhagen and Berlin.

[10] In April 2021, it was announced that Play had completed a pre-IPO private placement round with a total transaction size of six billion Icelandic króna (US $47 million) in new equity managed by Arctica Finance.

[14] The IPO concluded on 25 June 2021 with an eight-fold oversubscription in the offering, with total subscriptions received for 33.8 billion Icelandic króna (US $274 million).

[citation needed] In August 2021, Play applied to the United States Department of Transportation for the operation of flights between Keflavík and the US east coast starting in the summer of 2022.

[15] Its application was subsequently approved and the airline on 16 December 2021 announced its first services to the United States with flights to Baltimore and Boston, launching in April and May 2022 respectively.

[30][31] In May 2022, Play decided to halt delivery of its Airbus A321LR and cancel the planned Orlando route due to rising fuel costs.