The planned relaunch of low-cost carrier Wow Air, affectionately known as Wow 2, has been put on ice for the time being. Reports suggest that the airline will now look to begin services in December this year, rather than by the end of this month, as previously asserted.

Wow Air will not be launching services this month to Washington. Who could have seen that coming?

Well, frankly everyone; with the delusional ideas Ballarin had purported for fish-based income and exclusive lounges at Dulles, it’s not exactly a surprise that her overconfident assertion of taking to the skies by late October turned out to be a lot of hot air.

Then, of course, there was the fact that, contrary to what she told Icelandic press, Washington Dulles Airport had literally no idea what she was on about. No plans had been made, no slots granted and no ground-based provisions assembled. In fact, MWAA told us they had barely had more than a very short conversation with US Aerospace Associates regarding flights from Iceland.

What’s happening now?

According to reporting by Flight Global, this isn’t the end of this particular Icelandic saga. Now, the US-based investor plans to push back the launch date until December 2019. A statement provided to Flight Global read,

“Wow Air intends to be fully operational in December with ticket sales hitting the market in November. Significant market adjustments have taken place since the announcement of the re-launch of Wow Air. This contraction of air carriers has provided an increase in aircraft inventory previously not available in the late summer. Wow Air will take this opportunity to acquire and reconfigure our launch aircraft in the best interests of our customers and shareholders.”

WOW Air
Not going to Iceland this month. Photo: Airbus

We take it by that it means they want to snap up some of the aircraft going spare in the wake of all the airline collapses recently. Thomas Cook, XL Airways, Adria Airways and Aigle Azur all closed their operations in September, leaving a number of second-hand aircraft now heading to storage and awaiting a new operator.

As well as old aircraft, US Aerospace told Flight Global that it intends to submit an order for new aircraft from the manufacturers in the second quarter of 2020.

What’s the likelihood of this going ahead?

While Simple Flying never like to dampen anyone’s fire, the repeated over-promising of US Aerospace doesn’t bode well for the future of the Wow revival. In public, Ballarin is confident, asserting her assurances of everything being in place. However, scratch that surface, and there’s really not much going on.

WOW airliner on runway
Transatlantic low-cost has been a difficult nut to crack. Photo: WOW Air

We’ve seen no purple planes, no reports of cabin crew hires and no firm scheduling submissions at any stage of this process. As such, the push back of the October launch was somewhat predictable. Whether anything different happens between now and December remains to be seen.

While we’d all like to see the reinstatement of cheap transatlantic flights with that enticing Icelandic stopover, US Aerospace clearly needs to take a reality check and to start being a bit more transparent in its dealings. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!