Yahoo Finance Facing headwinds, WOW air to offer $99 flight from Montreal to Europe
WOW air will offer $99 one-way tickets for flights from Montreal to select European destinations between March and May, the Icelandic low-cost airline said Tuesday.
The airline said it will offer the cheap flights from Montreal’s Pierre-Elliott Trudeau International Airport to Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Reykjavik and London. The tickets will be available for travel between March and May, and are only available on select flights when booking round trips. `
This is certainly not the first time WOW is offering heavily discounted prices, but it comes at a time when the airline is facing headwinds and questions about its future.
In December, after what the company called “a challenging year” the airline announced a restructuring and simplification of its operations, reducing its fleet from 20 to 11 aircraft and selling four Airbus A321 planes to Air Canada. WOW also laid off 111 permanent employees and said contractors and short term staff will not have their contracts renewed.
“This is the most difficult day in the history of WOW air,” the company’s chief executive and founder Skuli Mogensen said in a press release at the time.
“However, in order to ensure our future and preserve WOW air in the long run, we unfortunately must take these drastic measures.”
Icelandair was prepared to takeover WOW air’s operations last year, but announced in late November that the acquisition had been abruptly cancelled. Icelandair’s interim CEO had said the outcome was “certainly disappointing.”
In the meantime, WOW air said in a press release on Feb. 28 that it is negotiating with Indigo Partners “while working toward closing an investment by March 29.”
Robert Kokonis, president of Toronto-based consulting firm AirTrav Inc., said while the latest strategic moves have helped stabilize the airline in the near-term, there are still questions that remain.
“My position on WOW air is somewhat middle of the road. I think that paring back their fleet… was smart. They had to do it to keep afloat,” he said in an interview.
“They certainly are out of immediate danger, but unless additional investment is secured, I think the long-term story for WOW air is definitely more uncertain.”
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