CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Some vacation plans are up in the air, after a budget airline went belly up.
Chicago was the first Midwest market served by Iceland-based WOW Airlines, starting in March 2017. Passengers could fly from Chicago to Reykjavik for as low as $99. Connecting flights from Iceland to other European cities were just as cheap.
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DePaul University Transportation Professor Joe Schwieterman told the WBBM Newsradio Noon Business Hour that the low fares attracted plenty of attention to the airline, which tried to apply the budget airline model to transatlantic travel.
"It generated tremendous publicity and fares under $200, because they socked you with lots of fees, but it still was the cheapest game in town," Schwieterman said.
But the initial burst of publicity wasn't enough to save WOW Air from a decline in passenger traffic.
"That was a good effort. They had some chances to survive, but at the end of the day traffic fell to Iceland and they ran out of money. It has really shocked a lot of people for summer travel right now. It's a bit of a mess," he said.
"There was some mismanagement here. They tried to get Icelandair to buy them out. It hit people by surprise here."
WOW Air left O'Hare in January, as part of a restructuring that was supposed to save the airline.