Wow Air abruptly shuts down, leaving thousands stranded

A budget airline has abruptly announced it is “ceasing all operations”, leaving thousands of people stranded around the world.

Icelandic budget airline WOW Air suddenly ceased all operations, stranding thousands of passengers across two continents.

In a statement on its website, the airline, which had earlier suspended all its flights, told passengers there would be no further flights and advised them to check flights with other airlines for ways to reach their destinations, the New York Post reported.

WOW Air founder and CEO Skuli Mogensen. Picture: WOW Air

The airline, founded by entrepreneur Skuli Mogensen, began operations in 2012 and specialised in ultra-cheap flights between North America and Europe, with flights to airports in cities including Washington, DC, New York, Paris, London and its Reykjavik hub.

Mogensen said more than 1,000 passengers had been affected by the grounding of aircraft. He said he didn’t have an exact figure on the number of tickets that had been sold.

Thousands of passengers have been impacted by the sudden shutdown. Picture: Twitter

Its bankruptcy comes after six months of turbulent negotiations to sell the low-cost carrier, first to its main rival and flagship carrier Icelandair and later to Indigo Partners, an American company operating the airline Wizz.

“I will never forgive myself for not acting sooner,” Mogensen said in a letter to employees Thursday. “WOW was clearly an incredible airline and we were on the path to do amazing things again.”

Tourism is Iceland’s largest industry and WOW’s disappearance is set to have an effect on this summer’s high season.

Speaking to CNN, Saurabh Aggarwal, who was due to fly from Toronto to Reykjavik on Wow Air, said the grounding had caused chaos at Toronto airport.

“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,” Mr Aggarwal.

The airline’s disappearance is expect to have an effect on Iceland’s tourism season. Picture: Pinterest, Wow Air

In its early years, the airline expanded fast to 37 destinations and reported up to 60 per cent annual growth in passenger numbers. Its revenue per passenger, however, has not kept up and fell by about 20 per cent in 2017, according to the last earnings report.

WOW grounded at least six planes in North America that were set to leave late Wednesday from Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Detroit, New York and Baltimore.

In Europe, Reykjavik-bound planes from seven cities — Amsterdam, Dublin, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt and Copenhagen — did not take off Thursday morning.

This article was originally published in the New York Post and has been reproduced here with permission.