WOW air (Reykjavik Keflavik) has announced it will reduce its fleet from twenty units to just eleven, retiring all widebody A330s in the process and cutting its long-haul network.
"The company is negotiating the return of several aircraft to the lessors, including all Airbus A330 widebodies. A contract is being negotiated to sell four Airbus A321 aircraft that are due to be delivered in January 2019, which will improve the company's liquidity by USD10 million," the carrier said in a statement, quoted by visir.
It will also not take the A330-900s, of which two were due for delivery shortly.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, out of the twenty aircraft mentioned by the carrier, two A320-200s and two A330-300s - all owned by Park Aerospace Holdings and managed by Avolon - were returned to the lessor and ferried to Shannon or Lourdes/Tarbes at the end of November.
The carrier currently continues to operate just a single widebody, an A330-300 TF-GAY (msn 1098). The twinjet is leased from ICBC Financial Leasing.
WOW air's narrowbody fleet currently includes twelve A321-200s, two A321-200neos, and a single A320-200neo.
The Icelandic LCC also announced it would terminate its flights from Reykjavik Keflavik to Los Angeles International on January 14 and to Delhi International on January 20. Going forward, further cuts in WOW air's North American network are expected.
In addition, WOW air also laid off 111 employees.
"This is the hardest day in the history of WOW air. We have a great group of people who have worked hard to make WOW air a reality and it's so sad to be forced to go to this cut," CEO and founder Skúli Mogensen said.
The carrier continues to negotiate its restructuring and financing with Indigo Partners, a global LCC investment fund. All other airlines in Indigo Partners' portfolio - including Wizz Air, Volaris, Frontier Airlines, and JetSMART - operate exclusively narrowbody Airbus jets.
