WOW Air became the first European airline to operate the Airbus A321neo this summer, opening up longer-range destinations that it could not access with its existing A320 family fleet.
“New longer-range narrowbodies are changing the role of Iceland,” WOW Air CEO Skuli Mogensen said, speaking on a panel at World Routes in Barcelona.
“We are already seeing the market flooded and the most obvious destination is US east coast, bypassing Iceland. This poses a threat to our current business model.”
However, the availability of smaller aircraft with greater range opens up new markets that larger widebodies would not be able to support. WOW Air is using this advantage to add new destinations, like Tel Aviv in Israel, using its A321neos.
With the US east coast becoming saturated, the Icelandic LCC is also adapting its network strategy. “We are looking further east, to Asia,” Mogensen said.
WOW Air, which was created in 2011, operates an all-Airbus fleet of A320s, A320neos, A321s, A321neos and A330s.
This summer the airline served 33 destinations across Europe, North America and Canada, including London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Washington DC, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto, Miami and New York.
(Victoria Moores - ATWOnline News)
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