Iceland-based WOW Air has had a tough road the past several months. The airline has been growing like crazy but hasn't turned a profit, and now the aviation industry is in an environment where that's not good enough anymore. In November 2018 it looked like Icelandair would acquire WOW Air, though that deal ended up…
Continue reading: WOW Air Looking For New Investor, Again
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The fact that they aim to conclude the negotiations so quickly makes me wonder if there is some major pressing issue. Because that does indeed seem extremely quick for such a complex negotiation. (If only May would have hired these negotiators to handle Brexit) So I wonder if they have reached the point where they can not continue to operate without investment.
Sounds like they need an investment ASAP or they're toast.
Icelandair was on the brink of acquiring WOW a few months ago, so they're already familiar with the details, so this shouldn't take long.
It's all just speculation of course but to me, it sounds like the original terms with Icelandair may have been too harsh to accept so they backed out and sought Indigo out for a better deal but it turned out worse so they are going back with hat in hand to Icelandair. That would also fit the short timeline needed. I think Icelandair would be the best fit. Actually Norwegian would have been the best but they have no money apparently.
Water and oxygen both are the life of a human being. But when wow started sell water we knew it will finish.
I think this might be a case where Icelandair needs WOW as much as the other way around. Icelandair needs something to cover for the grounding of the 737 MAX, and the A320s and A321s WOW has could cover some of the gap.
It’s possible WOW has cut enough costs to make it palatable for Icelandair to acquire them. Though aside from assuming the debt I doubt they’ll pay anything, maybe a dollar (or the Icelandic equivalent). Then they can shut WOW down in an orderly manner and rebook (most of) the affected pax onto their own flights.
One huge benefit of this combo disappearing is that when Ben writes a headline with “Wow!” in it, we’ll know he’s not referring to this airline. 🙂
We recently flew our 4th trip to Iceland on WOW, the 1st 3 on Icelandair. WOW was very nice as we enjoyed their seating options. We opted for XL seats w middle seat empty. Much more comfortable & much more affordable than business or 1st class of other airlines. I would definately fly them again for this reason. I hope they can remain in businees & offer this seating configuration to passengers!
Well the fact that government of Iceland is involved so that could say something about the urgency.
They nearly had a deal completed before, but WOW's ownership didn't want to restructure debt in order to make it happen. Now WOW is desperate, maybe they'll work a deal so they can get something out of it.