{"id":4142,"date":"2019-03-28T08:21:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4142"},"modified":"2019-03-28T08:21:43","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:21:43","slug":"passengers-stranded-after-icelands-wow-air-collapses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4142","title":{"rendered":"Passengers Stranded After Iceland’s WOW Air Collapses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"FILE
FILE\n PHOTO: Bikes by a bike rental service of Icelandic airline WOW air are \nseen in Reykjavik, Iceland, August 5, 2017. REUTERS\/Michaela Rehle\/File \nPhoto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(Reuters)\n – Iceland’s WOW air became the latest budget airline casualty on \nThursday, halting operations and cancelling all future flights after \nefforts to raise more funds failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WOW,\n which focussed on low-cost travel across the Atlantic, advised stranded\n travellers to seek flights with other airlines. It flew a total of 3.5 \nmillion passengers last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This\n is probably the hardest thing I have ever done but the reality is that \nwe have run out of time and have unfortunately not been able to secure \nthe funding of the company,” WOW CEO and founder Skuli Mogensen wrote in\n a letter to the company’s 1,000 employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I will never be able to forgive myself for not taking action sooner,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WOW\n had earlier postponed flights on Thursday as it entered what it had \nhoped were the final stages of an equity raising with a group of \ninvestors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“My\n flight from Boston has been cancelled. Having a hard time getting \nthrough to anyone on the phone. Can you help me at all?” Twitter user \nMarc Solari wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WOW replied with an apology and offer of further assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WOW\n is the latest budget airline to collapse as the European airline sector\n grapples with over-capacity and high fuel costs. Recent failures \ninclude Britain’s Flybmi, Nordic budget airline Primera Air and Cypriot \ncounterpart Cobalt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“RESCUE FARES”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other\n airlines including, Icelandair, Easyjet and Norwegian stepped in \noffering discounted ‘rescue fares’ to stranded passengers, according to \nthe Icelandic Transport Authority<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WOW has been pursuing different avenues to raise money over the past few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\n ended talks with rival Icelandair last Sunday while veteran low-cost \nairline investor Bill Franke also had cancelled a proposed investment \nthrough private equity fund Indigo Partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Icelandair shares traded up 13 percent percent at 1215 GMT after the failure of a competitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded\n in 2011 by entrepreneur Mogensen, WOW used smaller single-aisle planes \nto fly between Iceland and many destinations in the United States and \nEurope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its\n website had advertised flights from London to cities such as New York \nand Boston for as little as 150 pounds, although the journey went via \nthe Icelandic capital Reykjavik.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norwegian\n Air has a little over half of the market share in the fast-growing, \nlow-cost, long-haul transatlantic market, while WOW controlled a quarter\n in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are fears of a knock-on effect on Iceland’s important tourism industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around\n 30 percent of tourists visiting Iceland last year flew with WOW and the\n collapse could trigger a 16 percent drop in tourists this year, \nresearch from Icelandic bank Arion showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

( By Stine Jacobsen and Tommy Lund; editing by Darren Schuettler\/Keith Weir)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Barcelona, Spain – December 06, 2018: WOW Air Airbus A321 approaching to El Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) – Iceland’s WOW air became the latest budget airline casualty on Thursday, halting operations and cancelling all future flights after efforts to raise more funds failed. WOW, which focussed on low-cost travel across the Atlantic, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[797,89,2203,1397,868,1103],"tags":[539,420,3920,2374,2340,160,887,3553,395,2432,1190,3911,3918,3909,1924,3917,419,2553,3144,482,3423,2552,3919,2052,3914,3301,3910,943,134,2264,710,87,1923,2799,3913,718,412,3915,97,1557,1090,1685,3916,1022,3912,1288,942,2798,3908,1691,1916,1531,1162],"class_list":["post-4142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airline-news","category-aviation-news","category-finance-news","category-stock-news","category-transportation-news","category-travel-news","tag-air","tag-airline","tag-arion","tag-atlantic","tag-authority","tag-aviation","tag-bank","tag-bill","tag-boston","tag-britain","tag-budget","tag-cancelling","tag-cobalt","tag-collapse","tag-cost","tag-cyprus","tag-easyjet","tag-equity","tag-failed","tag-flights","tag-flybmi","tag-founder","tag-franke","tag-fund","tag-funds","tag-future","tag-halt","tag-iceland","tag-icelandair","tag-icelandic","tag-indigo","tag-london","tag-low","tag-mogensen","tag-money","tag-new","tag-news","tag-nordic","tag-norwegian","tag-operations","tag-partners","tag-passenger","tag-primera","tag-private","tag-raise","tag-reuters","tag-reykjavik","tag-skuli","tag-stranded","tag-transport","tag-travel","tag-wow","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4144,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions\/4144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}