Andy

If they didn't see this coming and make contingency plans well before the final shutdown, that's on them. Several WoW jets were repossessed prior to WoW shutting down operations and WoW had stopped paying almost all of their bills by February. There were plenty of clues that WoW was the walking dead.

Cheddar

But you should feel sorry for the family that paid less than $800 total for round trip tickets across the Atlantic. What could possibly go wrong when the paid less than half price of another flag carrier?!?


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ChecklistMonkey

That's flawed logic. If I go to the store and get a TV at 50% off, I expect it to work. Airlines always have varying fares. If I can buy a ticket on American for half the price as Delta, I have a reasonable expectation of completing my trip. One of the most profitable airlines in US history offers $49 one way tickets routinely. Are you saying that Southwest passengers should expect the company go bankrupt?

captjns

Travelers are consumers... searching for the lowest price. Nothing wrong with the philosophy. However, many consumers, when purchasing a TV for example, research the manufacturer of the guts of the product. Why pay more money for a named brand when they can purchase the same product for half the price for a no-named brand? Too bad those consumers, ie, the traveling public don’t conduct research of a no name carrier, to see their current status... service, delays, and financial situation.

Tour operators will use the cheapest form of transportation possible to maximize their profits. Again, the traveling public have the tools available to obtain information including, but not limited to the quality of carriers, hotels, feed back from previous travelers.

The public does have the expectation to receiving services/goods for payment made.

As Sy Syms said, “Our best consumer is an educated consumer.”.

Cheddar

My response was a bit tongue in cheek but here goes:

Captnjs said it best about the TVs. WOW is like a cheap tv manufacturer that constantly has recalls and horrible reviews online about their warranty and customer service ratings. Yet you say “well dang Edna, it is $1000 cheaper than that there Vizio and $1200 cheaper than the Samsung...” Two weeks later they are on hold with a computer trying to return their tv cause it sucks.

As for your SWA analogy - they have some of the highest rates in certain markets, even when where they compete with legacies. Their business model is different than say AA/DAL, and they can afford to sell tickets cheaper on some routes than others. Spirit is different from them, but they have a niche market and very good analysis of routes that can be cherry picked.

Wow was none of these. They had a multi aircraft fleet with a horrible reputation in the last year and zero economy of scale wrt aircraft type. They were purposefully trying to destabilize the transatlantic market with flag of convenience schemes and got kilt... NAI is probably next. Good. Effing. Riddance.


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NEDude

How on earth was WOW Air a flag of convenience in any sense?! An Icelandic company, with an Icelandic AOC, with crew working on Icelandic contracts, based in Iceland. Even ALPA couldn't spin that as a flag of convenience.

Cheddar

I read somewhere that they were. If not, apologizes to the Icelandic flag carrier formerly known as WOW.

Now, were they not fare dumping across the Atlantic trying to destabilize the transatlantic market?


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Andy

If you buy a TV for half off, it's going to have issues. It's, at a minimum, going to be open box with missing parts. Likely no warranty.

As for WoW, a cursory search on google would have told people that WoW was in deep trouble well before last Christmas. There were articles of WoW's partially failed bond offering, then there were articles of WoW courting white knights (Icelandair, Indigo Partners), then there were articles right after Christmas of WoW not paying their airport fees, then a couple of articles of WoW getting a couple of planes repossessed.

WoW was selling round trip tickets from the US to Iceland for $99 each way. It's one thing to fly domestically for cheap on a carrier whose name you're not real familiar with - at least you can find a way home by plane train or auto. But international is a totally different story.

So many red flags out there.

As for Southwest $49 fares, it's still offseason. Where can you fly for $49 one way?

As for WoW, they definitely were NOT a flag of convenience. They were flagged, owned (by Skuli Mogensen) and operated out of Iceland. In no way a flag of convenience.

dera

The cheapest flight I ever bought TATL was 388USD return.

That was with Lufthansa.

WOW wasn't price dumping or anything. They just had a really sh*tty product with nowhere near enough capacity to ever be profitable.
They just failed on their business plan and execution, it had nothing to do with price dumping, flag of convenience, or anything else that any US based carrier should be even remotely concerned of.

Typhoonpilot

To answer the original question, Jet Airways and Hong Kong Airlines are next. Both in deep financial trouble. Numerous articles in the trade papers talking about their financial woes.