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Icelandic Airline Wow Air Collapses and Cancels all Flights:
Iceland's low cost carrier Wow Air has canceled all flights and told passengers to book with other airlines.
Its website has a travel alert that begins: "Wow Air has ceased operation. All Wow Air flights have been canceled."
The alert said people who wanted to travel should now look for "so-called rescue fares" which may now be offered by rival airlines.
Wow added that those who made bookings by credit card or via a European travel agent should try to get their money back through those businesses. It said some passengers may be entitled to compensation from the airline itself.
[...] The company's model was to entice passengers with ultra-low prices before slapping on extra charges for seat selection, baggage, leg room and expensive refreshments. A typical base fare for a Wow flight from the U.S. to Europe could come in at less than $200.
A fall in tourist visits to Iceland and rising fuel costs had been cited as headwinds to profitability.
The airline had also suffered poor customer reviews and was particularly criticized over recurring delays.
You don't always get what you pay for, but you generally do not get what you do not pay for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @05:46PM (3 children)
no idea why they folded but it must be hard to run a airline business if your home airport is in a country with not much own oil and not much export economy to pay for fuel.
i think i remember that airplanes take off with a full tank but must land with a "empty" one ... so even if the destination has oil,
say amerika with N.Y. city, they cannot fill the plane up there so that they have enough on board to fly to iceland and back to the N.Y. gasoline station.
so unless they can power their airplanes with abundant icelandic geothermal power, someone has to bring the "fly energy" to iceland first?
maybe they can detour to dubai or sumething ... oh! wait...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Saturday March 30 2019, @06:22PM (2 children)
Passenger carrying aircraft in commercial service do not have to land with a 'empty' tanks.
1) They have to have sufficient reserve at landing to allow for (I think) 15 minutes extra flight. A pretty much final emergency reserve. Landing with less than this is regarded as a serious incident.
2) They have to fly with sufficient reserve fuel to allow for diversion in case of emergency, either if the aircraft has a problem, or if the destination airport has a problem.
3) They have to allow sufficient reserve fuel to allow for being put in a holding pattern while waiting to land at a busy airport. I don't think there is a fixed duration for this, as the chances of having to fly a long holding pattern will depend on the destination. If you find yourself running out of fuel, you can declare a 'fuel emergency' and get priority, but this is frowned upon. Some airlines are notorious for flying close to the limits and relying on this. It is not regarded as good practice.
4) They are allowed to carry extra fuel so that they do not need to refuel at a destination airport. It is known as 'tankering', and so long as the aircraft does not exceed the maximum allowed landing weight* for its configuration, you can carry what you like. It is often used when providing service to airports that have either very expensive fuel, or poor infrastructure. It can also be done for economic reasons, but most jet fuel is untaxed everywhere, and carrying it around is not zero cost. There are quite complex calculations that depend on relative fuel prices and fuel burn rate for different weights of the aircraft, so iPad apps exist to help pilots determine how much fuel to carry, or not. Commercial airlines will have very fine tuned policies on this.
Maximum Landing Weights are interesting - most aircraft can land safely at significant weights over the MLW - but they need to be inspected for damage afterwards. There isn't a specific weight above which the airframe collapses into a pile of components on touchdown - so if the priority is to land immediately (e.g. fire on board), you don't spend time flying around jettisoning fuel (if you can) or simply burning fuel off (if your fuel jettisoning system doesn't exist or isn't working), you land sharpish, and let engineering sort out the mess (replacing landing gear components, replacing deformed skin panels, unbending structural components).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @02:05AM (1 child)
FAA rules are fuel to get to your destination, then to divert to another qualified destination, and then 45 minutes on top of that. That's to take off, not to land; if you land with less than your 45 minutes of reserve it's not a problem, it's what the reserve is for. Individual airlines have their own operating rules, though, and might require pilots to report (internally, not to the FAA) landing with less than 45 minutes of fuel on board.
There is not any particular distinction between holding pattern reserve fuel and whatever other reserve fuel. Aircraft spend less time in holding patterns than they used to due to improved navigation and ATC technology and more direct flights rather than hub-and-spoke, and ATC will prioritize aircraft for landing that are at risk of running out of fuel. Generally, the reserve fuel is needed in case you waste time deciding to divert (pilots might choose to make multiple landing attempts before diverting), in case your fuel consumption is higher than expected (either because of incorrect fuel management, poor engine performance, routing changes, or unfavorable winds), or whatever other unexpected reason might cause you to use extra fuel.
It's common to carry more fuel than the bare minimum. Generally, it depends on how expensive fuel is at the destination relative to how expensive it is to carry it with you from the origin. Some places fuel is just more expensive, but it also depends on the specific deals airlines make for fuel. Even pilots of small single-engine planes can save money buying fuel in bulk at their home airport, airlines save much more.
It's the pilot's choice how much fuel to take (within the operating limits of the aircraft, of course) however airlines generally pressure pilots to carry less fuel, not more, especially when flying from an expensive location to a cheaper one. Having, once or twice, gotten below the 45 minute reserve limit, it's really not a comfortable feeling. It seems like half an hour should be plenty of time to find a place to land, but it's not always. Among small aircraft, running out of fuel is the #1 cause of in-flight power loss. The pilot's fuel management, in general, is far less reliable than the engines are. Even airliners have run out of fuel (search for "Gimli Glider"), in that case as a result of a pilot-training failure that is somewhat reminiscent of the current problems with the 737.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:38AM
Thanks for the clarification and description of FAA practice.
For those interested here are a couple of articles: one on ICAO practice from Aviation stackExchange:
Aviation StackExchange: What are the ICAO fuel reserve requirements? [stackexchange.com]
and one from Skybrary:
Skybrary: Fuel - Regulations [skybrary.aero]
The latter references EASA SIB 2018-08 [skybrary.aero] which details and clarifies the specific phraseology that should be used when a pilot informs Air Traffic Control of a lack of fuel:
MINIMUM FUEL - you will land with less than the final reserve
MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY FUEL - the pilot believes that the lack of fuel is an emergency situation.