Wow Pilots Blame Negative Media Coverage for Airline’s Collapse

By Anna Breuer on 28 March 2019
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Wow cabin crew at Keflavik Airport

Wow cabin crew at Keflavik Airport

Pilots at Wow Air, which stopped operating Thursday and cancelled all flights after failing to secure funding to continue operations, are blaming journalists who covered the airline’s ongoing financial difficulties for its demise.

The airline’s collapse prompted the Iceland Pilots Union, or Íslenska flugmannafélagið, to demand that the Union of Icelandic Journalists, or Blaðamannafélag Íslands, launch an inquiry into the critical reporting of Wow’s financial difficulties. The pilots want to know if journalists received benefits such as free flights from competitors to influence the reportage.

The news was first reported in the Reykjavik Grapevine, an English-language magazine that covers Iceland.

“It is the responsibility of journalists to critically discuss important companies in the Icelandic economy,” said the Blaðamannafélag Íslands in a statement, adding that the attempt to trace the airline’s problems to the work of journalists would be like going “to a goat house to look for wool.”

Wow’s collapse follows the demise of multiple airlines in Europe including Primera and Flybmi as well as several airlines in Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)

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