WOW Air has been on a downward spiral lately, and the carrier’s 2019 summer schedule reveals just how far the cuts are going.
Continue reading: WOW: WOW Air Will Only Fly To Four US Cities This Summer
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
As a resident in the DC area, I am glad to see that they are still flying to Baltimore. I flew them to Berlin early last year, and the experience was bare bones, but pleasant and the plane, including the bathrooms, was clean. The only downside was changing planes in Iceland, as the layover was very short (less than an hour) and I had to go through customs because it was my EU port of entry. Plus my plane was late in arriving from Baltimore. But I believe WOW delayed the flight to Berlin, and me as well as several other passengers I wasn't traveling with managed to make our connection. Overall, a good experience flying with them, and I hope they hang on
I flew WOW from Reykjavik to Orlando within the first 2 weeks after it launched. My flight was pretty empty and Icelandair also flies this route so it's not surprising that they limited service since I doubt there is so much demand.
I was happy taking WOW. I traveled from Pittsburg to Iceland in September 2018 and then later from Newark in November 2018, thru Iceland to Berlin. Both flights were pretty full. On that second trip the airline emailed a bid offer upgrade in seats, which was a good way of making money for the airline. I paid $70 upgrade but I preferred being in a regular seat. The planes were very clean and roomy. I’d pay more to keep them afloat. I’d plan another last minute trip this year through Iceland to Europe but worry that it may be canceled due to their financial hardship.
@caimy not really. BWI is a hub for southwest, so it's become something of the low-cost airport for DC. It's actually equidistant from capitol hill to IAD and BWI if that gives some perspective. (At least BWI has a direct rail connection)
@caimy
WOW continuing to fly into BWI at Baltimore makes sense from the perspective that BWI serves both the Baltimore area as well as the DC area (and Philly is only 1.5 hours away). There are approx. 2.8 million people residing in the Baltimore metro area and approx. 6.2 million people in the DC area (a total of approx. 9 million people) compared to approx. 4.2 million people in the Detroit metro area, so there are more than twice the number of people living in the Baltimore and DC metro areas than in Detroit's metro. On top of that, I am pretty sure that there's more demand for Europeans flying to the DC/Baltimore area than to the Detroit area.
BWI and DTW are both heavily served by Spirit, also an Indigo Partners production, so a partnership there is likely. The other two, BOS and EWR, not so sure.
I have flown WOW about 3 times from BWI. Every time, the plane has been packed, one was summer, the other two times it was winter, so doesn't seem to matter.
“I think we grew extremely rapidly, but … we made some strategic mistakes in adding the (Airbus) A330 into our fleet.”
Like, really?... Then there is no ambition whatsoever, besides trying to catch some low-hanging short-range fruit at the margins... Anyways, the sooner they go under the better. Think of all the man-hours time they wasted and the misery they caused for so many people over their short span....
Detroit makes sense. Competition to Europe is slim pickings on direct routes; DL/AF/KL have it on veritable lockdown, and then LH need not really lower fares because of the heavy auto industry and related business markets. Wow is a welcome addition, although I'm not their target audience.
I flew to Iceland last February and like others say the experience was pleasant, the seats had enough room and the bathrooms were clean. The service was also adequate. I’m glad they’re still flying from Baltimore/Washington.I hope they stick around for more budget travel to Europe.
Knowing they returned the newer planes won’t encourage me to use them again ... newness if the plane offset other issues like seat covers that were only a few cms thick.
BWI makes sense. It's a DC-area airport so a huge catchment area, and BWI has been eager to lure more international carriers. I flew Condor to BWI and it was 50 minutes from wheels down to the time I was in my car driving home. They actually called up BWI office staff to help guide people through immigration lines for example. It was super-fast.
Meanwhile it took 30 minutes just for my bags to arrive at IAD when I came in a few days ago -- big pool of European flights all landing at once.