Iceland’s WOW Air to expand rapidly in 2017, pushing up LCC penetration on the trans-Atlantic

Iceland's WOW Air is planning more rapid growth in 2017 as it adds seven aircraft and continues to expand its North Atlantic operation. WOW's new routes to Los Angeles and San Francisco will be upgraded to daily while Miami will be launched, giving the LCC eight North American destinations.

WOW launched services in 2012 and only began serving North America in 2015. The LCC has successfully stimulated demand in a market dominated by full service airlines, particularly airlines in immunised trans-Atlantic joint ventures.

WOW expects the trans-Atlantic market can support significantly more LCC capacity and potentially an LCC penetration rate of up to 40% compared to only approximately 5% currently. WOW also has been growing in Europe mainly with additional capacity to existing destinations that is supported with transit traffic growth to North America.