I am committing this thread to the Other Airline forum without a clue how it will all end up. As noted in the British Airways forum - rarely a place entirely fixated on BA issues - I have a trip from LGW to Boston, via Keflavík, tomorrow Friday, on WOW, the Icelandic low cost carrier founded by a charismatic businessman, Skúli Mogensen, in 2011. Much of the initial history of the company came out of a take over of Iceland Express, whose planned business model WOW still uses. Namely to run KEF as a hub, vaguely on the path between Europe and USA, with two banks of aircraft arriving early morning and early afternoon. Passengers would be going eastwards in the morning, westwards in the afternoon, and interchanging between aircraft to create a large variety of travel options, including to places like St. Louis and Pittsburgh, which legacy airlines would struggle to operate. So flights like Berlin to St Louis are as straightforward as Dublin to Chicago, just a bit of mixing and matching.
How come I'm flying Wow? Well I may develop this as the thread develops, but just before Primera collapse, back in August 2018, I was somewhat surprised at some of the extremely low fares they and other carriers were offering between UK and USA. The more I dug around - and looking at some discount codes sent in round robin emails from the airlines - I found myself looking at a rock bottom fare from my home airport (Edinburgh) to Boston via Wow's hub for
£239.04 return - approximately US$300. To put that in context, when the late Sir Freddie Laker launched the SkyTrain in 1977, his each way fare in the days before APD and high security, was £59, which is about £350 in today's money - each way. That fare included what for me is an essential, a window seat, so in that fare is an optional charge £16.96 for 4 sets of window seats. That is, of course, a hand baggage only fare, and indeed at that level the bag is one personal item only, maximum dimensions of 42x32x25cm/ 17x13x10in (10kg / 22 lbs). Now surviving on that for a few days isn't unusual for me, and with a bit of careful planning and packing I went ahead and booked it.
And the purpose of the trip? Well I've never been to Buffalo at the top end of New York state, and I fancied a weekend there.
Fast forward from August to early October and Wow announces that it is cancelling EDI-KEF services. The email was unclear as well as misleadingly worded, the cancelled flights weren't removed from the website, and no public announcement had been made, but I guessed what had happened, and I called Wow's customer service centre, which I think was in India. The agent was very helpful, but in the end it boiled down to a full refund or rebooking from LGW (London Gatwick). Now starting from Gatwick removed one of the novelty factors for me, but actually it wasn't so unhelpful since I had a reason to be in London on the return date. So I agreed to that change. After an hour on the call, I was duly reticketed and a comprehensive PDF with full details arrived shortly afterwards. Even my seats had been transferred correctly.
Now we get to the end of November, and things aren't looking great for Wow. It is clearly in deep financial trouble, a merger with Icelandair has collapsed and by coincidence the airline's previously agreed restructuring led to the return of 4 aircraft to the their leaseholders. Here are some threads that I was looking at:
WW "airlines to go bust"
(post 270 and on) plus
Icelandair just acquired WOW
And the news feed that concerns me most is one stating that Wow's staff will get their monthly salary on the day of my travel (30 November) as normal. That question doesn't arise in pleasant circumstances.
Right now I'm on the train from Tweedbank to Edinburgh, about to take the Edinburgh - London Gatwick service on British Airways, in preparation for my Wow flight tomorrow, and I haven't a clue where this will end up. It's unknown territory for me, I've had airlines go bust on me before but I've never been this close to the wire. Well, Wow haven't actually gone bust yet, and looking at their aircraft status all seems normal:
https://wowair.co.uk/travel-info/flight-info/
Some observations:
1) I am surprised bow uncomfortable I feel about this. As BA forum members will appreciate, I have significant air mile balances on all 3 major alliances, there are plenty of other flights, mostly in the £500 plus area but some are below that. I know where to find information and which search engines to use. I would say that I am an experienced and well informed air passenger. So in terms of ability to get out of trouble, I'm much better placed than most travellers. Still, I do find the current situation quite irksome, and that's not quite the right word. I'm over-checking the news feeds to see if there are any developments, with a slight sense of foreboding. For less regular travellers, should they be aware of this potential bankruptcy, I imagine it will be a lot more worrying.
2) Practicalities 1: I've looked up options and have Plans B to D lined up - so a Norwegian flight from LGW, a BA Avios redemption options to one of several USA locations and a cash ticket on BA. I've got other options via TAP, Iberia, KLM but one doesn't wish to disturb one's breakfast if one can avoid it.
3) Practicalities 2: As a UK resident, I know that if my airline goes bankrupt, I am covered under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, where my credit card (Post Office Bank of Ireland) is also liable for the purchase. So I'm in no danger of losing the fare, it just could get a bit messy sorting it out. I haven't contacted them yet (what is there to say?) but I have got the relevant information on the transaction and the credit card company's contact details, so that I can contact them while travelling. My insurance - in common with most UK schemes - doesn't cover airline bankruptcy directly, but will cover related costs such as extra accommodation.
4) Practicalities 3: I tried online check-in (OLCI) on Wow's website, but I wasn't surprised that it didn't work. Check-in opens at 24 hours before the USA flights (not the LGW-KEF sector) in order to get the handshake from the US authorities to allow passage, and that's based on ESTAs and North American passports. I'm using a UK passport, but with a visa rather than an ESTA. Wow uses an OLCI module provided by Travelport, which is also used by other smaller airlines.
5) It may never happen! Hopefully I will at least get to Boston, the return next week will be another issue.
I will update this thread as things progress.