WOW air Pulling Out Of St Louis, Cleveland & Cincinnati
WOW air has been a very aggressive airline. They have been aggressive with their many sales and with their expansion into the US. They attempted to gain market share in the Midwest and it looks like that has failed on a few fronts.
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Details
After only 5 months in each of these cities WOW air is saying no more. St Louis’ last WOW flight will be January 7, 2019. Cleveland and Cincinnati were seasonal and WOW air will just not pick up service again this summer.
Detroit was the other city that WOW air added to their roster at the same time. They said there is no plan to pull out of Detroit at this time.
Removing from unprofitable markets is nothing new for airlines but to do it so soon after launching the route seems a bit odd. WOW was the only non stop flight to Europe out of St Louis.
USA Today reported that when asked specifically about the JFK and Dallas route WOW responded that they have not made a decision on those routes for 2019 yet. It looks like there may be more changes coming.
Conclusion
It is sad to see an undeserved area lose affordable access to Europe. I am glad Detroit still offers WOW’s service. I have been meaning to test them out for a while now after hearing good things from friends. Hopefully the Detroit area supports the airline enough that they don’t have to pull out of yet another location.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out with JFK and Dallas. I would think those areas would have plenty of support but the competition is also more fierce.
Share your thoughts in the comments section.
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First, I figured out the actual costs to fly from STL to Iceland and then to Europe. It wasn’t that cheap. Now I have flown from STL to Germany on a MAC flight a few time and it was a flying cattle car. Cramp WOW flight would be too much torture. Perhaps the low cost airlines across the Pond that have announce flights to the USA will get it together.
In regard to STL, SWA has been the big dog for decades and control many gates. The airline has agree to pay a good portion of a baggage system upgrade, in exchange for reduce fees over a 20 year period.
Seems like that could be a good deal for SWA long term
Wow, that was quick. My house sits right under the approach to CVG and flights burble over at 2500 feet all day…I was hoping to see at least ONE WOW flight go over, guess I won’t now.
Yup surprising how quickly they pulled out of the area.
I totally misread the title as “Wow Air Polluting 3 MidEast Cities.”
Well technically all airlines pollute so you are not far off there 🙂
Unclear to me why they thought the demographics would support this. Poor people, probably a ton without passports and not the kind who would be heading to Iceland if they ever did leave the country populated the base there.
You need a substantial enough semi-affluent base to make things like this work.
I think they saw all of those areas as under served and an opportunity. I think you need a strong middle class to support WOW since affluent people probably don’t want to fly a budget airline. Probably why Detroit is doing ok with all of the middle class people from the automotive industry.