[3] It provided scheduled and charter passenger services from Northern Europe to more than 40 destinations in the Mediterranean, Middle East and North America.

[9] In 2006, Primera Travel Group, an Icelandic tourism operator with subsidiaries in several countries, bought a controlling interest[8][10] and Jón Karl Ólafsson was named chairman in 2008.

The continued success allowed Primera to increase both the number of routes and flight frequency, resulting in a mixed charter/scheduled carrier business model.

In late 2014 Primera launched 10 new winter and summer direct flight destinations from Iceland, namely, Las Palmas, Tenerife, Alicante, Salzburg, Malaga, Mallorca and Barcelona, Bologna, Crete and Bodrum.

[17][18][19] On 26 October 2014 Primera Air Scandinavia launched weekly flights from Gothenburg and Malmö to Dubai (Al Maktoum) and Tenerife, from Helsinki to Fuerteventura and Las Palmas.

On November 16 the airline commenced a new route from Keflavik to New York (JFK) after acquiring rights to serve the United States.

Later that year the airline started four new weekly routes, which included Aalborg to Las Palmas, Copenhagen to Lanzarote via Billund, as well as Aarhus to Tenerife and Fuerteventura.

In 2015, Primera Air Scandinavia signed agreements worth 30 million euros with several leading travel agencies in France for operating a series of flights with 2 aircraft from Charles de Gaulle airport to popular holiday destinations during summer.

Norwegian Air Shuttle, once a profitable short- and medium-haul budget airline, aggressively expanded on the long-haul market leading to large losses.

[29] The long-haul debut was announced in July 2017, and initially consisted of services on six routes from Birmingham, London Stansted and Paris Charles de Gaulle to Boston and Newark.

[33] Furthermore, the airline also expanded its 2018 leisure network from Scandinavia with flights to Athens, Kos and Zakynthos from Copenhagen, Billund, and Stockholm.

[36] Citing delivery delays by Airbus of its A321neo fleet, Primera soon cancelled all transatlantic operations at Birmingham Airport scheduled on or after 21 June 2018.

[43] The airline also paid over US$20 million to charter or wet lease aircraft due to the late delivery of its Airbus A321neo fleet, alongside other unforeseen expenses.

[44] Unable to obtain further financing to accommodate the resulting losses, Primera announced in a statement dated 30 September 2018 that it would cease operations effective 2 October 2018, citing a poor financial standing from the write-off of an aircraft from corrosion, delivery delays of the Airbus A321neo aircraft and resultant wet leasing, and being unable to secure long-term financing.

At the time of closure, the airline had served several routes, but further announced long-haul flights from Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, and Madrid never commenced.

A further seven aircraft were registered to subsidiary Primera Air Nordic, whose operations were fully integrated into those of the parent company.