WOW Air’s rapid expansion into the US marketplace has finally had its first hiccup. The Icelandic low-cost carrier announced that it would halt its service to Miami International Airport (MIA) as of April 7, 2018. Svana Fridriksdottier, the VP of Communications for WOW Air, commented to USA Today that: “Service from Miami will be paused starting in April, with the possibility of becoming a seasonal route in the future.”, so there may be a slight possibility for Miami flyers that those $99 fares to Europe might come back at some point.
This route cancellation is the first of its kind in the US for WOW Air, which has expanded to 14 airports (now 13) in North America over the last several years. With nonstop flights to Reykjavik, Iceland (KEF) serving New York (JFK), Boston (BOS), Baltimore (BWI), Chicago (ORD), Detroit (DTW), Pittsburgh (PIT), Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), Newark (EWR), and Montreal (YUL), Toronto (YYZ) as its two Canadian destinations.
In the spring of 2018, WOW Air also plans to begin service to/from Keflavik Airport to Dallas (DFW), Cleveland (CLE), St. Louis (STL), and Cincinnati (CVG). With no other indication of stopping its expansion to cities in the US and Canada, it will be interesting to see if WOW Air is just testing out these new destinations as a barometer for growth in North America, or if we will see any more route cuts like the Miami (MIA) service in the near future.
