New transatlantic flights from less than £100 one-way are due to take off from Gatwick next summer.
But there’s a catch – passengers must change aircraft in Reykjavik.
The £99 flights are being offered from today (Thursday) by Icelandic low-cost carrier Wow Air.
The airline, established in 2011 by Icelandic entrepreneur Skúli Mogensen, aims to link flights from Gatwick to new services to Boston and Washington DC.
Flights from Reykjavik to Boston are due to start on March 27 followed by Washington on June 4, with the Gatwick link commencing in April. Both services involve an hour to change aircraft in Iceland.
Mogensen claims the airline will offer the cheapest connection between Europe and North America in a move that challenges direct transatlantic budget flights from Gatwick offered by Norwegian.
The Boston connecting flights will run five times a week and those to Washington four times a week. Wow Air currently flies daily between Gatwick and Reykjavik with twice-daily flights on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.
Wow Air will use Airbus A320s on the leg from Gatwick to Reykjavik and new A321 extended range aircraft for the flights to and from the US.
The £99 lead-in fare is available for travel from the UK on Mondays and Tuesdays between March 30 and June 15.
Mogensen said: “This is just the beginning of our plans to transform low-cost transatlantic flights.
“Not only are we providing flights to the USA for less than a standard London to Edinburgh train ticket, we’re opening the market to a whole new market of travellers who might previously not have been able to afford transatlantic travel.
“The low-cost airline market is scrambling to offer cheap flights to North America and I’m happy that we‘ll be amongst the first to do so and at a price point that will no doubt cause our rivals to re-evaluate their plans.”
The services will compete against Icelandair which runs a network of flights across the North Atlantic with connections from UK airports.