Icelandair’s Northern Lights Boeing 757 is chopped up into 25,000 keyrings

Icelandair’s iconic Northern Lights-inspired Boeing 757 has operated its last service, but its story isn’t over yet.

Following its retirement last year, Hekla Aurora has been chopped up to live on as keyrings for fans of the airline.

Aviationtag, the German company that immortalises some of the world’s most famous aircraft as collectables, has already sold out of its stock of Boeing 757 skin keyrings once, but says that more will be on their way soon.

Hekla Aurora: Icelandair’s unique Boeing 757

Hekla Aurora had flown with Icelandair since 2004, although it wasn’t painted into the iconic Northern Lights livery until 2014. Designed to inspire passengers to visit Iceland, TF-FIU operated across Europe and North America as a destination billboard, complete with aurora-inspired mood lighting in the cabin.

Icelandair withdrew the aircraft in October 2025, operating a special scenic flight for guests around its home nation before it headed into retirement. From there, it was transferred to Lleida in Spain, where the Aviationtag team set about recovering sections of skin to repurpose into tags.

Working in temperatures exceeding 40 degrees C, the team painstakingly removed sections of the aircraft’s outer skin, taking care to preserve the unique paintwork. The metal was then shipped to Cologne, where Aviationtag sorted, polished, cut, and engraved the tags, ready for fans to add to their collection.

Icelandair also retired the beautiful Vatnajökull glacier special livery Boeing 757, TF-FIR, last year. As yet, there’s no news on whether Aviationtag will be repurposing parts of this aircraft as well.

New Hekla Aurora tags to be added daily

Within hours of the pieces being put on sale, Aviationtag had sold out. However, it’s not all bad news for fans of the unique 757, as the company told AGN it will be adding more soon.

“If you missed out at launch, we have good news: production continues every day, and we’re adding new tags to the shop daily,” Aviationtag shared. “Turning original aircraft material into a finished tag takes several steps, and the many individual colours and patterns make sorting the variants a careful process, too. We appreciate your patience and understanding while our team prepares more tags.”

The company advises interested collectors to sign up for notifications via its website.

Overall, more than 20,000 pieces of Hekla Aurora will become tags, letting the livery live on beyond the flying life of the airframe.

Icelandair moves closer to retiring the Boeing 757

The Icelandair Group has operated the Boeing 757 since 1993, when its first leased 757-200 arrived. Over the next three decades, the group flew some 45 of the type, the vast majority of which were the shorter -200. Just two -300s were flown between 2002 and 2024.

The airline began phasing out its 757s during the pandemic, with around a third of the fleet retired between 2020 and 2022. Today, just six aircraft remain, all of which are well over 25 years of age.

Icelandair had originally planned to phase out the 757 fleet by summer 2027, but has moved up the timeline in light of the elevated fuel prices the industry is grappling with. Now, it expects the final aircraft to leave the fleet this winter.

Replacing the 757s are the incoming new-generation narrowbody A321neos and Boeing 737 MAX. At present, Icelandair has 21 737 MAX in the fleet and six A321neos, with more of both to come, including the long-range A321XLR.

However, there is one 757 that may hang around in the Icelandair fleet for longer. TF-LLL is a uniquely configured all-business class Boeing 757-200 painted in National Geographic livery.

It’s used for luxury National Geographic voyages around the world, and while it will ultimately be superseded by an A321neo, it may be the last to leave the Icelandair fleet.