It's not been a good year for low-cost airlines. In a travel alert posted on their website, Icelandic carrier Wow Air has announced that they've officially ceased all operations and canceled all of their scheduled flights. As CNN reports, these abrupt cancellation of their flights has resulted in passengers stranded on both sides of the Atlantic. Wow Air is the third airline to cease operations in 2019, with Germany's Germania and Britain's Flybmi announcing their closures in February.
Wow Air CEO Skuli Mogensen spoke with Iceland's RUV about how the airline came to the decision. "As is normal, people believed we would get the investment," he explained. "We have been very transparent, but it didn't happen. [...] I'm very sorry about this as these are people who have supported us. I'm disappointed not to honor our commitments." More than 1,000 passengers have been impacted by their sudden closure. According to some users on Twitter, passengers were only informed of cancellation 20 minutes prior to boarding.
In speaking with CNN, Wow customer Saurabh Aggarwal said that passengers were not provided with any compensation following the cancellation of their flight from Toronto to Reykjavik. "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," Aggarwal added.
Others faced a four-hour delay and weren't even told about the cancellation and found out about it online.
A number of airlines have offered reduced fares to stranded travelers, with EasyJet, Icelandair, Wizz Air, AL Airways, and Norwegian Air all stepping up with the offer.
