wow air

Budget airline offering cheap flights to Europe just shut down

The budget airline WOW Air, based in Iceland, shut down abruptly this week. 

WOW, which operated in cities like Toronto, New York, and Montreal, offered super cheap flights to European destinations Paris, London, and Reykjavik. 

The airline posted on its website to say all flights had been suspended, and told customers to find a new flight on a different airline. The move stranded hundreds of passengers in Europe and elsewhere. 

Many are without a solution as their flights were cancelled with no notice. 

Others were told to contact their credit card company to determine if they could receive a refund. That isn't very helpful at getting home from a foreign land, though. WOW also did not offer refunds to the passengers it stranded.

WOW had spent the past year or so trying to bail itself out of financial chaos, first attempting to sell itself to its own carrier, Icelandair, and then later trying to broker a deal with Indigo Partners, which offers the cheap American airline Wizz. 

There were several flights grounded that were meant to depart late last night from several North American cities, including Toronto, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Detroit, and Montreal. 

In Europe, people are stranded in places like Amsterdam, Dublin, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Berlin after more than 15 flights were grounded this morning. 

The website also allowed people to book flights basically right up until the closure announcement. 

So far, WOW has not commented on the closure since its initial announcement.

Lead photo by

Alex Osterrieth


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