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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-28-2019, 06:05 PM
Good opportunity for some Icelandic guys to take advantage of some stranded WB's.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-29-2019, 03:28 PM
Their business model was a bit puzzling. They seemed to offer some truly rock-bottom fares between the Europe & USA (and I believe Europe & Asia as well). I'm not sure how they ever were going to turn a profit.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-29-2019, 03:37 PM
Flew them once last year Amsterdam to LA. Once was once too much. Shit airline. This doesnt surprise me
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-29-2019, 03:41 PM
As I said in the other thread, this will curtail a decent number of the Americans who were planning to visit Iceland, but tourism in the country will still remain high because it's a popular destination for a variety of reasons. The in-flight experience with WOW Air when I went last year was actually pretty decent, but the baggage fees sucked. Low-fare, long haul flights is a competitive area of the airline industry, though. And clearly the company wasn't generating enough working capital to keep its operations afloat.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-29-2019, 10:01 PM
I'm very much interested in the aviation industry and have done some work on it. Unfortunately, I feel that Norwegian will be next. I like them but they have expanded too quickly. The main issue with Wow Air was a fast expansion along with low load factor during the winter months hence the end of winter shut down. Wow Air flights were just too cheap to be sustainable aswell. Apparently Jet Blue are looking at starting TATL (Transatlantic) flights.
Icelandair have pushed prices up to a more appropriate level for the costs following this. Wow Air accounted for 33% of Keflavik passengers in 2018 so a big loss. 59 workers for the Reykjavik Tourist Excursions were let go straight away.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-30-2019, 08:06 AM
They also had no business class. Thats a huge part of revenue for the traditional TATL carriers.
With both Wow and soon probably Norwegian going it does remain to be seen if its possible to run a TATL low-cost service. Ryanair would be ideally located to run one you'd think with their Dublin base, size, and low cost expertise, but they've so far resisted. Probably for good business reasons.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-30-2019, 11:22 AM
I have to imagine this is really going to hurt the Icelandic economy given how many tourists they brought
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-30-2019, 08:30 PM
If the Max ever gets approved again, would the discount airlines buy them at a discounted price? Especially if the major carriers refuse to buy them due to negative PR fears? Even thought the pilots get mandatory training for the Max now, I wonder if the public or airlines will be willing to fly on the Max if given a choice between airbus or and older 737.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-30-2019, 09:56 PM
R.I.P. Wowair. Memorable trip with my wife and kid back in 2007.
It was a great company
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-31-2019, 07:17 AM
Holy crap - I was THIS close to booking on them last week for an upcoming trip to Europe. Turned out though that they were only a tiny bit cheaper after all of the excessive luggage fees, and no direct flights, so I booked Air Canada instead.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
03-31-2019, 05:53 PM
Quote: (03-29-2019 03:41 PM)Rang off the Pipe Wrote:
As I said in the other thread, this will curtail a decent number of the Americans who were planning to visit Iceland, but tourism in the country will still remain high because it's a popular destination for a variety of reasons. The in-flight experience with WOW Air when I went last year was actually pretty decent, but the baggage fees sucked. Low-fare, long haul flights is a competitive area of the airline industry, though. And clearly the company wasn't generating enough working capital to keep its operations afloat.
Agree, I flew it from San Francisco to Dublin a few years ago for a very short trip (~72 hours, was going out for a friend's wedding) and it was nothing special but fine for the price which was half of any of the other options. The layover in Reykjavik airport from like 1-5 am with everything closed kinda sucked though.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
04-06-2019, 10:50 AM
Ryanair have looked at transatlantic very seriously over the last 15 years but never pulled the trigger. I can see why they haven’t done it, they’d have to try point to point with the UK and Ireland to the North East and somehow try to hub from Stansted and Dublin to the rest of Europe. They’d have to partner with some American airline to access the rest of the US market, it seems pretty messy.
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WOW Air shuts down abruptly, stranding passengers
04-09-2019, 05:24 AM
Airlines file for bankruptcy often. Most large US carriers did earlier this decade.
They've performed very well financially since then.