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Must have been pretty dramatic if they suddenly canceled all flights rather than winding down the company. The article doesn't exactly make that clear.

umeshunni 8y ago
It was not abrupt. Things had been bad for them for the last year or so. WOW worked (publicly) for the past five months to find a new source of funding and restructure its operations, hoping to continue flights. * In November 2018 it looked like Icelandair would acquire WOW Air, though that deal ended up falling through * After that, Indigo Partners (private equity group which has invested in quite a few airlines) signed an agreement in principle to invest in WOW Air; just a few days ago it was announced that this deal fell through * Earlier this month, WOW Air announced that they were back in discussions with Icelandair, and that the parties hoped to conclude negotiations by Monday, March 25, 2019 * On Sunday Icelandair announced that they had concluded talks with WOW Air, and didn’t intend to move forward * Then things got really bad, as one of their planes was allegedly repossessed in Montreal WOW Air bondholders approved a plan to convert their bonds into equity, but that only takes you so far On a related note, WOW Air is the third European airline to halt operations this year, joining Flybmi and Germania.
- dehrmann 8y ago
  Norwegian is also on the watch list. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-18/norwegian-air-plunges-after-setting-price-of-rights-issue https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-18/norwegian...
- sudenmorsian 8y ago
  Just as a note, Indigo Partners is an American private equity firm which has controlling stakes in Frontier Airlines and Chilean low cost carrier JetSmart and stakes in Wizz Air and Volaris, which are major low cost carriers in Eastern Europe and Mexico respectively. The Indian low cost carrier Indigo is unrelated.
  - umeshunni 8y ago
    Thanks for letting me know. I've updated my post to remove that reference.

umeshunni 8y ago

It was not abrupt. Things had been bad for them for the last year or so. WOW worked (publicly) for the past five months to find a new source of funding and restructure its operations, hoping to continue flights. * In November 2018 it looked like Icelandair would acquire WOW Air, though that deal ended up falling through * After that, Indigo Partners (private equity group which has invested in quite a few airlines) signed an agreement in principle to invest in WOW Air; just a few days ago it was announced that this deal fell through * Earlier this month, WOW Air announced that they were back in discussions with Icelandair, and that the parties hoped to conclude negotiations by Monday, March 25, 2019 * On Sunday Icelandair announced that they had concluded talks with WOW Air, and didn’t intend to move forward * Then things got really bad, as one of their planes was allegedly repossessed in Montreal WOW Air bondholders approved a plan to convert their bonds into equity, but that only takes you so far On a related note, WOW Air is the third European airline to halt operations this year, joining Flybmi and Germania.

dehrmann 8y ago
Norwegian is also on the watch list. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-18/norwegian-air-plunges-after-setting-price-of-rights-issue https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-18/norwegian...
sudenmorsian 8y ago
Just as a note, Indigo Partners is an American private equity firm which has controlling stakes in Frontier Airlines and Chilean low cost carrier JetSmart and stakes in Wizz Air and Volaris, which are major low cost carriers in Eastern Europe and Mexico respectively. The Indian low cost carrier Indigo is unrelated.
- umeshunni 8y ago
  Thanks for letting me know. I've updated my post to remove that reference.