Onetime Disruptor Wow Air Is Ready for a Reinvention

When entrepreneur Skúli Mogensen started a new low-cost airline based in Iceland in early 2012, the space was ripe for disruption. U.S. and European airlines, many newly profitable after a harsh recession, had little interest in thwarting a new entrant with gaudy branding that charged for everything, from larger carry-on bags to sodas. Moreover, Mogensen's airline, called Wow Air, didn't have much low-cost competition across the Atlantic, as Norwegian Air was a smallish European operator then. Perhaps better, Iceland, a newly hot tourist destination, had limited service to the United States, including just one U.S. legacy carrier flight— New York to Reykjavik on Delta Air Lines. At first, it worked as planned. Wow Air expanded to the United States in 2015, and established players generally left it alone. It skimmed passengers from the bottom of the market, filling aircraft with cost-conscious travelers. Some flew to Iceland for vacation, while others stopped in Reykjavik to s