Yesterday’s collapse of Icelandic low cost airline Wow Air has left many passengers stranded at the airports. The airline has confirmed its closure of operations by way of a travel alert that can be seen on its website and has cancelled all its flights. It has been learnt that the main reason for the collapse of this airline is the inadequate funds to run its network of operations. Wow Air was in talks with its rival carrier Icelandair since November 2018 for some kind of a merger or acquisition to get bailed out of its bad financial state of affairs. It has been learnt yesterday that these talks between the airlines have gone futile and there’s no investment coming in from Icelandic Air into Wow Air.
Wow Air’s CEO Skuli Mogensen issued a public statement yesterday in the wake of the closure of this airline. He told Icelandic Broadcaster RUV “As is normal, people believed we would get the investment. We have been transparent but it didn’t happen.”
The airline has appealed to its customers to book new alternate flights for their destinations and also said some customers may be eligible for compensation. Meanwhile, it has been learnt that its rival carrier Icelandair has started offering reduced air fares to those affected due to the closure.
Most passengers who have been stranded have reported that Wow Air gave conflicting status updates of their flights and didn’t provide them with any kind of accommodation or refund for the loss.
One Wow Air passenger, Saurabh Aggarwal who was stranded in Toronto (as reported on cnn.com) said “This really scared everyone, at that point we were finally given back our bags and no money as of now has been issued back to me.”
The entire social media was also flooded with messages that criticized the airline for cancelling the flights and closing their operations.
Wow Air was a budget airline based in Iceland, used to operate service across Iceland, Europe and North America, used to offer dirt cheap flight tickets because it believed in all thrills and no frills concept. The airline couldn’t run their operations mainly because of lack of investment and so it has been shut down completely since Yesterday.