WOW Air May Have Just Found A New Lifeline

Interesting idea about partnering with Frontier. Though I don’t believe their business model would jive well in a partnership with Southwest (who doesn’t nickel and dime and is prolly more of a LCC rather than ULCC), curious your thoughts on why SW hasn’t partnered with European or Asian airlines with a limited US-connection network like this?

Ha! I thought it was IndiGo (the indian LCC) at first until you mentioned that they are an american private equity firm.

Interesting, frontier just partnered with Volaris in a codeshare agreement. I had no idea they shared ownership. Maybe Frontier will have an Atlantic partner soon as well.

@BENHOLZ I thought the same thing! hahaha I was thinking "hmm...that's..original. let's see where they go with that."

Will Icelandair come to regret the decision to walk away from the proposed acquisition of WowAir?

The Frontier partnership makes a ton of sense. It's a way to feed traffic from the smaller markets that can't support a flight to Iceland, as well as fill some seats on Frontier flights. I would imagine the market is pretty similar for Frontier and Wow- infrequent travelers jumping on a deal, students, retirees with flexible schedules, families trying to cut per ticket prices down, etc.

Frontier on one side of the Atlantic, Wizz Air on the other side....it may work.

The core problem with trans-Atlantic LCCs is that significantly more Americans are interested in a cheap flight to Europe than Europeans interested in a cheap flight to America, especially the fourth-tier cities that Wow began operating in, simply because it got a nice local subsidy.

Why would a European from Milan or Paris suffer on a Wow Air-via-Iceland flight to the United States for $450 -- fees and bags included -- when they can literally fly on all manner of full-service carriers to almost anywhere in the world -- cheaper and more interesting destinations like Tokyo, Havana, Rio de Janeiro, CapeTown, and Thailand -- for the same price?!

Wow needs to focus on a few cosmopolitan cities -- New York, Miami, Chicago, DC, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal -- and then develop a network of connecting flights with Spirit or Frontier.

For a moment, I was surprised to see that a reputed low cost airline would invest in the shambles that is Wow. Then I read the article and it all made sense..sort of.

Hmmm. Very Interesting. I can actually see how it could possibly work. Frontier would need to change a few things, but I can see it beneficial to both

WOW...The problem I see for WOW has been obtaining low-cost ground support at US airports. But "synergistic savings" by using all of Frontier's ground support and even gates...HUGE.

I believe the onward connection possibilities are only secondary...primary concern has to be further cutting costs within the US. Think about it this way: Why would anyone connect TWICE (both in KEF and in the US) just to go to Europe? All of the 'Big 3' US carriers already compete on SINGLE connection tickets to major cities in Europe from practically anywhere in the US.

The timing of this announcement makes me think that Indigo offered a better deal than Icelandair and WOW decided to drop it despite what the initial statement said (though it was rather vague).

Given how successful WIzz Air has been doing then i honestly think this is great news for WOW.

Frontier?! Come on....exactly how many cities does Frontier even serve? Not many.

I always find it confusing that Indigo Partners has nothing to do with Indigo in India.

Would one of you just pick a different name and solve this problem!!!!!!!

@Manny - well uh, aside from the fact that they have shared ownership with Wow, Frontier also has 100 destinations and have service accessible to almost 90% of the USA sooo... it's kinda obvious buddy

Either Ryanair, Wizzair, easyJet or Norwegian Shuttle Airlines, Tui fly (IAG Group) and Lufthansa group eurowings may acquire some part of shares to support airline operating.

Getting rid of all wide body planes, A321neoLR single aisle efficient newest planes take advantage of transatlantic routines and use fuel refilling stop airport bases to extend routine’s long distance range. For example,
Reykjavík— via Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto — L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Anchorage.