Reykjavik-based Wow Air has axed another three US routes.
According to USA Today it will cancel its St Louis route this coming January and will not restart its seasonal flights to Cincinnati and Cleveland.
All three routes were launched only a few months ago.
Wow Air is quoted by USA Today as saying “Unfortunately, it has to be said that St Louis was a disappointment for Wow Air this summer in terms of end results, with load factors that were not achieving the targets that were set for the route in the beginning.”
Their low fares mean that LCCs (low-cost carriers) must achieve higher load-factors than conventional airlines to turn a profit.
Even before its Delhi route has even started, Wow Air decided not to increase flight frequency in January 2019 from three to five weekly flights as planned.
It would appear that Wow Air is having to streamline its operations in the light of rising fuel costs, fierce competition and overcapacity.
Wow Air is mainly a sixth-freedom carrier. Its business plan is taking travellers between Europe (and Delhi) to North America via Iceland.
But once these transatlantic routes start to be dropped there will be fewer passengers to support Wow Air’s other feeder services to Europe and Delhi.
The future for Wow Air’s other transatlantic routes remains unclear.
