• Icelandair received its first Airbus A321neoLR in December to begin replacing its aging Boeing 757s.
• The airline's CEO said the move was not due to ongoing issues at Boeing.
• Icelandair also flies the Boeing 737 Max and plans to get the A321XLR in 2029 to open new routes.

Icelandair has received its first-ever Airbus aircraft, breaking from its all-Boeing fleet for the first time in its nearly 90-year history.

The new A321neoLR planes, which can travel up to nine hours nonstop, were delivered in Reykjavik on December 3. By 2027, the 7 new planes will replace Icelandair's aging fleet of Boeing 757s.

Icelandair CEO Bogi Nils Bogason told Business Insider that the A321LR is the "best replacement" for the inefficient 757s as it is 30% more fuel efficient per seat with a similar capacity.

He also said the Airbus order has nothing to do with Boeing's ongoing production issues.

"We ran a campaign between Boeing and Airbus in 2022 and finalized that in early 2023 with Airbus," he said, meaning the deal was signed before the Alaska Airlines 737 Max blowout in January.

The 757 has been the backbone of Icelandair's operation since 1990, connecting Iceland to North America and mainland Europe. Its smaller size makes it cheaper to fly compared to widebody planes while still providing sufficient capacity to be profitable.

But Boeing never built a replacement for the 757, which was discontinued in 2004. This gave Airbus an opportunity to seize the transatlantic narrow-body market with its long-range A321neo family.

Plenty of other Boeing planes will remain in Icelandair's fleet. It currently flies 21 Boeing 737 Max aircraft, which it ordered in 2012 before the A321LR or A321XLR were available.

Cirium data shows nearly 22,000 Max flights scheduled for 2024 across cities in Europe and the US. At least 23,000 Max flights are scheduled for 2025, including new routes to Nashville and Istanbul.

"We are operating, on our scale, a very big Boeing fleet into the future, so Boeing continues to be a very important partner of Icelandair," Bogason said.

Icelandair also flies a small fleet of Boeing 767s on routes where it can carry a lot of cargo alongside passengers. Bogason said these will continue to fly for the "near future."

Icelandair's A321LR will fly up to eight hours nonstop

Icelandair's first passenger A321LR flight took off Tuesday, flying from Reykjavik to Stockholm, with later flights scheduled to Copenhagen.

Cirium data shows that the A321LR will expand to 15 more European cities through 2025, like Rome, Helsinki, Munich, and Zurich. In North America, the jet will fly up to eight hours nonstop to cities including Seattle, Toronto, and Portland, Oregon.

None of these are new Icelandair routes and are already served with Boeing jets, but the A321LR will slowly phase out the 757 or fly alongside the Max to these cities, per Cirium.

Icelandair's A321LR plane has 187 seats in two cabins: 165 in economy and 22 in "Saga Premium."

Saga resembles premium economy, featuring large reclining seats with privacy wings, a legrest and footrest, and a 16-inch television screen. The 2×2 cabin does not have lie-flat seats as seen on the A321LR planes flown by JetBlue Airways or Ireland's Aer Lingus long-haul.

Bogason said this is due to most of its flights being shorter because they stop in Iceland rather than fully crossing the Atlantic.

He acknowledged that flights to cities like Seattle could take eight hours, but equipping and operating planes with different premium cabins would be too complicated and costly.

"We use the same planes in North America and Europe, but many of the European flights are short, so lie flat would not be in a very high demand there," Bogason said. "There is definitely revenue potential, but we believe we have the right product for our business model and for the locations that that we are in."

Bogason added that the shorter flight times may negate the need for lie-flat business class, but it helps Icelandair earn business from competitor airlines. This is thanks to its stopover program, which allows travelers to stay in Iceland for a few days before connecting beyond Reykjavik.

Bogason said this helps convince travelers to choose one-stop Icelandair over the nonstop transatlantic options.

The A321XLR will complement Icelandair's A321LR fleet

Icelandair also has 13 A321XLRs on order — an even longer-ranged Airbus narrowbody variant — that will also act as replacements, but the first is not expected to be delivered until 2029.

Bogason said the A321XLR will allow Icelandair to fly even further and open new routes.

"We could fly the new narrowbody into California, into Texas, and into the East from Iceland," he said. "This creates a lot of opportunities for the development of our network and our business model."

More than a dozen global airlines, including American Airlines, Spanish flag carrier Iberia, Hungary's Wizz Air, and United Airlines, have placed more than 550 orders for the new A321XLR.

Similar to Icelandair, United is planning to use the extra-long-haul jet as a replacement for a 757 and launch new nonstop flights to destinations like West Africa and Northern Italy.

Thanks to its extra fuel tank, the A321XLR can fly 800 miles further than the A321LR and open new routes previously unreachable with narrowbodies or unprofitable with widebodies.

Bogason did not reveal any details about Icelandair's expected A321XLR cabin, but the jet is versatile. American and United, for example, are equipping the plane with lie-flat business class.

Budget carrier Wizz Air will only offer a no-frills economy cabin on its A321XLRs, which its CEO says passengers will just have to "suffer" through for a cheap long-haul ticket.

If OpenAI has its way, the next online course you take might have a chatbot component. Speaking at a fireside on Monday hosted by Coeus Collective, Siya Raj Purohit, a member of OpenAI’s go-to-market team for education, said that OpenAI might explore ways to let e-learning instructors create custom “GPTs” that tie into online curriculums. […]

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• Despite the democratization of music in the streaming era, it's still very expensive to record an album.
• A veteran music lawyer said it can easily cost $250,000, while a Grammy nominee estimated $300,000.
• Although many artists are forgoing record labels, it's nearly impossible to become a superstar without one.

It's no secret that artists yearn for creative freedom, and in recent years, musicians like Raye, Tinashe, Laufey, and Little Simz have opted to release their music independently instead of via the traditional major-label system.

But that creative freedom comes at a price — literally.

In Business Insider's new feature, "Want to make money as a pop star? Dream on," singers, songwriters, managers, and music lawyers explain why making money as an independent artist is especially tough, particularly for those who are early in their careers.

Thanks to streaming services and social media, it seems easier than ever to become a star. Artists no longer need distribution deals to upload their music online, or expensive marketing campaigns to get noticed on TikTok.

"You've got this democratization of the music business where there's not the same barrier for entry," said Donald Passman, a veteran music lawyer who is the author of the music-industry bible "All You Need to Know About the Music Business." "The problem is that everybody's got that access."

About 100,000 new tracks are uploaded to Spotify every day, per Passman. "So how do you break through the noise? That essentially is what the labels have become," he explained.

Labels typically offer artists advances as a signing incentive, which they expect to recoup over time. They'll also often front the cost of recording an album — a key benefit for any artist who wants to work with high-quality producers and sound engineers.

"If you want to be a worldwide superstar, so far, nobody's really done it without a label," Passman said. "People can get along pretty far down the path, but they don't really do it without a label."

Muni Long, a Grammy-winning R&B singer and songwriter who's also written hits for artists such as Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, and Fifth Harmony, recently broke down these expenses for Apple Music 1's Nadeska Alexis.

By her back-of-the-napkin estimation, which included studio costs ($1,200 per 12-hour block, plus a session engineer at $75 to $100 an hour), mixing and mastering (anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 a song), and paying for beats (anywhere from $5,000 to $40,000), the baseline cost to record a full-length album like her 2022 breakthrough, "Public Displays of Affection: The Album" would be about $300,000.

"That eliminates 75% of the people who are aspiring," Long said. "I didn't realize how much money that it takes to actually be an artist."

Long's estimates align with Passman's; he said it can "easily" cost $250,000 to record an album, especially for pop and hip-hop artists, who tend to collaborate with larger teams.

That price tag is a key reason many artists still opt for a record contract, even if it means signing away their masters (the original sound recordings of their songs) or agreeing to a lopsided division of royalties. Getting cash up-front gives the artist freedom to make music without worrying about the often astronomical price tag — at least not right away.

Rachel Chinouriri, a 26-year-old singer-songwriter from London, told me that signing to Parlophone/Atlas Artists in the UK was the only way she could afford to make music her full-time job. The contract offered a supportive team and a financial safety net. Otherwise, she would've had to write songs on the side while fueling her income with another gig — not an uncommon practice for independent artists.

"My manager was just like, 'Here are the amount of costs you'll need,' and I'm someone who is paying rent and can't live at home with my family," she explained. They both agreed the indie route wasn't feasible.

While creating her debut album, "What a Devastating Turn of Events," Chinouriri was able to execute her vision on her label's dime, instead of fronting the money herself.

"I've never had to sit and think, 'How much has this studio session cost?' When I did my album, I don't even know how much the producers got paid — it just was done," Chinouriri says. Her plan is to build a following and recoup over time; she notes she's still being loaned money from her label and is not yet in the black.

"I don't know how I'd be able to do all of this and then have to think of the cost," Chinouriri adds. "I don't know how Raye does it, I don't know how Tinashe does it. It's such a mission."

While Raye and Tinashe are independent artists, neither began their careers that way, splitting from Polydor and RCA respectively after negative experiences.

By the time they severed ties with their major labels, both had already built loyal audiences, networks of collaborators, and teams they could rely on when the purse strings tightened. And even that doesn't necessarily mean they're bringing in a profit.

In June, Raye told me she was "breaking even," while Simonne Solitro, Tinashe's longtime manager, said they've had to figure out how to make songs and music videos on a "microbudget."

"Every single dollar that you make needs to funnel back into your project," Solitro said. "You essentially become a startup business."

• Raye is a 27-year-old singer and songwriter who was recently nominated for three Grammy Awards.
• While promoting her latest single "Genesis," she told Business Insider that she was "breaking even."
• "If I was in this to make money, I wouldn't even be releasing the kind of music that I am," she said.

Raye is a multi-platinum singer and three-time Grammy nominee who has worked with Beyoncé and opened for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour. And yet, as of this summer, she said her music career still isn't making her money.

In Business Insider's new feature, "Want to make money as a pop star? Dream on," Raye opened up about balancing the books as an independent artist and sacrificing profit to serve her artistic vision.

"There's ways to make quick cash and there's ways to make a profit. And trust me when I tell you, I'm not taking those ways," Raye told me in June following a performance at the Conrad hotel in downtown Manhattan.

It was the latest stop in a series of mini-concerts across the globe, including Amsterdam, London, and Berlin, to promote her newest single, "Genesis." The price to organize and execute these shows — from travel expenses to lighting design and hiring a full band — was far from cheap, Raye said, but ultimately worth the investment.

"We're breaking even and it's beautiful," she said.

"I'm putting out a piece of music that I'm really proud of," she added, "with the roll-out plan that I wanted."

Raye, 27, was born Rachel Keen in London to a Ghanaian-Swiss mother and an English father. In 2014, she signed a four-album record deal with Polydor, who were impressed by the buzz surrounding her self-released EP, "Welcome to the Winter."

Seven years, four more EPs, and hundreds of thousands of streams later, Raye publicly accused Polydor of keeping her debut album suspended in limbo. She begged the label to take her off the shelf, saying she'd already tried everything else. "I switched genres, I worked seven days a week, ask anyone in the music game, they know," she wrote on X.

The following month, Raye announced that she'd been freed from her contract. In 2023, she released her first full-length LP as an independent artist, "My 21st Century Blues," which landed at No. 3 on BI's list of the year's best albums.

Earlier this year, Raye took home six Brit Awards, setting a record for the most wins in a single night. She's nominated for songwriter of the year, non-classical at the 2025 Grammys, and will also compete against stars like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter for best new artist. (She was also nominated for best engineered album, non-classical for her work as a producer on Lucky Daye's "Algorithm.")

In the music industry, working outside the major-label system can yield more creative control. For Raye, it has ushered in a new era of critical acclaim and commercial success.

But there are downsides, too, namely the lack of financial backing. Labels typically offer an advance as a signing incentive, though the actual dollar amount varies widely. They also tend to cover the up-front costs of recording and promoting an album — studio sessions, producers, sound engineers, photographers, stylists, and radio campaigns, to name a few — which can total $250,000 or more for pop and hip-hop artists, according to Donald Passman, a veteran music lawyer who is the author of the music-industry bible "All You Need to Know About the Music Business."

These days, touring is especially expensive, as costs for everything from bus rentals to hotel rooms to hiring a lighting technician or manning a merchandise table have ballooned.

"You're getting paid X to do Coachella, and then you spend double the amount that you got paid to do the show on the show itself, because you want to do a great show," Raye explained. "And you have to pay musicians, and the singers, and everyone what they deserve."

To find any level of success in the industry, Raye said she needs to be as much a businesswoman as she is a creative force.

Still, even when faced with the cold, hard numbers, she said that losing money is preferable to cutting corners.

"It upsets me to do a half-assed gig or to do a half-hearted thing," Raye said. "If I was in this to make money, I wouldn't even be releasing the kind of music that I am."

• EY has an AI-powered avatar named eVe that candidates can use for a pre-interview.
• The AI avatar allows candidates to ask questions and can help them prep for a real-person interview.
• EY also lets some candidates take virtual tours of their offices in the metaverse.

EY, a Big Four accounting and consulting firm, is turning to technology to improve its recruiting process — in part by allowing job candidates to warm up with an AI interviewer before getting face-to-face with a real person.

Company leaders who work on recruiting and metaverse experiences told Business Insider the AI interviewer was aimed at providing a better — and potentially less stressful — hiring process.

A link to the AI-powered avatar, called eVe, is sent out to candidates as soon as they are selected to advance to the interview stage. eVe can answer questions about the company and help candidates prepare for their interview with a real person, according to Francesca Jones, an early careers leader at EY.

The AI avatar, which appears on the screen as a real person would during a video chat, can be spoken to directly and offers verbal answers back within moments, mimicking an actual conversation. It can also be used with text like other chatbots.

eVe can walk candidates through what the EY hiring process is like and help with case study preparation. It can also answer follow-up questions and give detailed responses about how benefits like healthcare and retirement plans work at the company. eVe can be used at any point in the process, so candidates can revisit it when weighing whether or not to accept a job offer.

EY started offering eVe to job candidates in early October, so they are still waiting to get a fuller picture of how it is being used. However, eVe went through months of internal user testing with hundreds of interns, which gave a glimpse into how early-career professionals in particular would use the tool.

"I was amazed by the types of questions they asked and how much time they actually spent with it," Domhnaill Hernon, global lead of EY's Metaverse Lab, told Business Insider. He suspected the younger generation might spend two to three minutes with eVe and then move on, but they were regularly spending 15 to 20 minutes engaging with it conversationally, asking questions and follow-ups.

One intern who spent 25 minutes talking to eVe went into extreme detail evaluating EY's compensation benefits, particularly comparing the company's pension plan to its 401K offering. Others asked the sort of questions that many early-career professionals want to know ahead of interviews but might be afraid to ask, like what to wear.

Though it is powered by an OpenAI GPT-4 large language model, eVe's knowledge base comes entirely from EY content, so the AI avatar is basing all of its responses on information that is specific to the company, rather than generic answers pulled from the internet.

Jones said that beyond enhancing the recruiting process, the avatar also signals to candidates that the company is ahead of the game from a technology standpoint.

EY, like other major consulting firms, has focused heavily on AI. The company announced last year it had invested $1.4 billion on the technology and created its own large language model.

It's also not the only company to incorporate AI into the hiring process, with so-called AI interviewers becoming more common in the generative AI boom. Companies and recruiters are also using AI to sort through resumes and cover letters.

Apriora, a startup founded last year, provides companies with an AI interviewer called Alex, who can conduct early-stage interviews. The AI interviewer asks questions chosen by the company and can ask the candidate follow-up questions in real time. The startup raised $2.8 million in seed funding and graduated from startup-incubator Y Combinator.

Hernon said they worked with behavioral scientists, neuroscientists, and learning leaders inside and outside of EY to understand psychological safety, with the aim of reducing the "social threat" felt by the user as much as possible. In other words, they wanted eVe to feel less intimidating than a real person might, encouraging the user to ask questions that they otherwise might be too embarrassed to ask.

With that in mind, the team chose to make eVe look human-like, but not like it was pretending to be human, so the avatar is not photorealistic.

"You've removed that human social threat, but yet at the same time it feels human enough that they want to spend time interacting with it," he said.

Have a news tip or a story to share? Have you done a job interview with an AI avatar? Contact this reporter at [email protected].