As a business scales, so does its need for data management - especially in the current tech landscape. Dreamix partnered with Icelandair teams to build a modern enterprise data warehouse and semantic layer - giving the organisation access to consistent, governed, and reliable data.
Since this collaboration began, Icelandair has:
- built a new, flexible, cloud-native data warehouse,
- introduced a semantic layer that gives non-technical users direct, self-serve access to trusted data,
- centralised business logic and strengthened data governance.
The Story of our Partner
Our partner, Icelandair, is Iceland’s flag carrier and a leader in the competitive transatlantic aviation market. With a fleet of 55 aircraft and transporting over 5 million passengers annually, the Iceland-based carrier has built its business model around Iceland's unique geographical position as a natural midpoint between North America and Europe.
With almost 4000 employees, the airline has become synonymous with accessible transatlantic travel. Icelandair is recognized as one of Europe's most punctual airlines during peak travel seasons - a reflection of their operational efficiency. With a focus on continuous innovation, Icelandair continues to modernize its fleet and expand its network of destinations across both continents.
The Challenge
Icelandair set out to build a new enterprise data warehouse that would match the scale and quality of its services. Their existing warehouse had served them well, but the team saw a clear opportunity to move to a more flexible, cloud-native solution that could scale up their needs and support more sophisticated analytics going forward.
Alongside the new warehouse, Icelandair wanted to introduce a semantic layer - a centralised bridge between the technical data infrastructure and the analysts, commercial teams, and business users who depend on it. The goal was to give non-technical users direct, self-serve access to data, while ensuring that key business metrics are defined consistently and used the same way across every team and function. This would also bring tighter control over data access, giving the flag carrier full visibility into who can see what and ensuring the right people have access to the right data.
The Dreamix Solution
Dreamix and Icelandair developers began with a proof of concept, working alongside Icelandair’s stakeholders to validate the proposed architecture before committing to a full build. The team gathered requirements, mapped data flows, and designed the warehouse structure around the flag carrier’s existing data sources.
The combined development team built the new warehouse to give Icelandair a single, reliable place where data from across the business is structured, maintained, and ready for analysis. Rather than teams pulling from different sources and arriving at different answers, everything flows through one well-governed platform. They selected the tech stack - Databricks, DBT, Windmill, GitHub, and Power BI - to ensure the warehouse scales, stays maintainable, and builds on industry-proven tools.
The semantic layer is crucial in this setup. It sits between the data infrastructure and the people using the data and translates technical data models into business-ready metrics for users to access and rely on. Teams across the business define key measures once and share them organisation-wide, so commercial, operational, and analytical functions always work from the same numbers. The solution controls access by role, using Icelandair’s existing organisational structure, so the right data reaches the right people without additional overhead.
The Results
Icelandair now has a modern data platform that supports better decisions at every level of the business. Teams across the organisation are, or are planning to, work from a single, consistent source of truth, with key metrics defined centrally and data access managed with precision. Business users can access the data they need independently, reducing reliance on technical teams and accelerating the pace of analysis.
Because the team built the platform to scale, onboarding new data is straightforward, and the value compounds over time. The foundation is in place - and as Icelandair continues to expand its network and operations, its data infrastructure is ready to grow with it.
