Wow, budget airline WOW Air is just done
WOW Air, known for its too-good-to-be-true budget flights between Iceland, Europe, and North America, is finished.
The company abruptly shut down and grounded all its flights on Thursday. It had been providing cheap transatlantic flights since 2012.
Its website looked normal except for a yellow banner on the top announcing, "WOW AIR has ceased operation. All WOW AIR flights have been cancelled" with a link to a travel alert.
Earlier this year WOW had pitched "its lowest airfare ever with $49 flights to Europe" in an email. According to CNN, the airline CEO spoke with an Icelandic news outlet and said negotiations to save the airline fell apart. Potential investments or takeovers from other groups or airlines were floated last week, but didn't happen.
More than 1,000 passengers were reportedly affected by the airline shutdown. WOW Air alluded to possible refunds, but suggested customers talk to their credit card companies.
When I reached out to the vice president of corporate communications an auto-email came back with the blunt message, "Sadly [WOW Air] has quit operations and I will [lose] contact with this email address shortly."
So-called "rescue fares" are available through another airline, Icelandair, with reduced rates. The Icelandic Transport Authority has more information. That's the same agency that WOW Air is referring people to for more information or assistance.
But that doesn't mean people aren't stranded, screwed, and pissed off. On Twitter travelers stuck in North America and Europe vented about the sudden grounding, bad communication, and ruined trips. At Reykjavik's Keflavik International Airport, passengers slept at the airport after canceled flights.
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That Blue Lagoon visit will have to wait.
UPDATE: March 28, 2019, 3:56 p.m. PDT Other transportation companies have stepped in to help stuck travelers. United Airlines said on Thursday afternoon it would provide lower fares for WOW Air ticketholders for flights Thursday through April 12.
WOW Air had flights out of the U.S. and Canada and throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and Israel.
Customers need to have their WOW booking and flight number and then can book the special United flights out of Newark, Boston, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Montreal, and Toronto. Outside of North America, United is offering discounted flights out of Paris, Milan, Brussels, Stockholm, Berlin, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Dublin, Amsterdam, Lyon, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Tenerife, London, Edinburgh, and Tel Aviv.
Travel booking app Hopper said it would reimburse any customers who booked a WOW flight through the platform. The company will also cover rebooking costs for any stranded passengers. It's reaching out to affected customers via text and in-app notifications.
Here in the U.S., budget bus company Megabus is offering free bus rides to any passengers with canceled WOW tickets who were planning to fly Thursday through Sunday. The bus company can't get you to Iceland or Europe, but it's offering to take you to another city for any rebooked flights or alternate travel plans. WOW Air only flew out of four U.S. cities before it shut down: Newark, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Detroit. Flights out of Los Angeles and San Francisco stopped at the end of 2018.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
