Wow, Indeed: Airline Ceases Operations, Leaving Travelers Stranded And Angry

Skuli Mogensen, CEO of Wow Air, poses during a delivery ceremony of his airline’s first Airbus A321neo, at the Paris Air Show in 2017. The airline abruptly ceased its operations on Thursday.

Pascal Rossignol / Reuters

Wow Air surprised its passengers by abruptly saying it’s going out of business Thursday, in a move that left travelers scrambling to book other tickets — and wondering whether they would be able to secure a refund.

“WOW AIR has ceased operation. All WOW AIR flights have been cancelled,” the low-cost Iceland-based airline announced Thursday morning.

For many passengers, the news confirmed their worst-case scenario. Wow had already canceled a number of international flights out of Newark, N.J., Baltimore/Washington International Airport and other airports Wednesday night. In several cases, those cancellations followed hours of delays.