Because the planes that the Icelandic-Latvian company will be using for these flights lack the fuel capacity to make the entire 3,500 mile journey.
The Independent reports that the stop in Iceland will add an additional 300 miles to passengers’ journeys, as well as 90 minutes.
Airlineroute revealed on Twitter that the airline would be using Boeing 737-800 planes from London to New York instead of its usual Airbus A321 planes from next week, and only the previous planes are able to make the journey in one go.
The Boeing 737-800 planes used from next week can only fly 3,000 miles at a time, which means they need to have a break on the way.
So journey times next week will increase from the normal time of eight hours and 25 minutes to nine hours and 55 minutes.
However the route, from Stansted to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, close by to the Big Apple, is still being advertised as “non-stop” and makes no mention of the time-adding stop on the carrier’s website.
A Primera Air spokesperson told us: "Due to operational reasons, six flights in September will be operated with Boeing 737-800 instead of Airbus A321neo.
"As these were ad-hoc changes, the website is not showing the information properly, however all passengers on these flights have already been informed about the aircraft change and information on the website will be updated today.
"We apologise for the inconvenience, however these are temporary changes after which A321neo will be again operating the New York route.’’
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Prices for these seats are showing up as low as £153 one way – very cheap for such last minute flights.
So Brits looking for a last minute trip to New York will likely be willing to overlook the slightly longer flight times.
The budget airline announced earlier this month that it was axing all of its flights from Birmingham Airport – 207 in total.
Popular summer holiday routes such as Alicante, Tenerife, Las Palmas, Barcelona and Palma de Majorca were affected.
The airline ran into trouble earlier this year when it axed long-haul flights from Birmingham to New York and Toronto.
The budget airline blamed the decision on late delivery of its long-haul A321neo aircraft from Airbus.
The airline was running three flights a week to New York and had been set to run three flights to Toronto, but these were all cancelled.
It had initially been offering rock-bottom low transatlantic fares for as low as £99 each way to the US and Canada, including Boston and Washington DC.
Sun Online Travel previously revealed the way to save up to 50 per cent off the cost of long-haul flights.
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