It is a little hard to believe that it is almost the one year anniversary of the bankruptcy of Wow Air. This low cost Icelandic airline went bust on March 28th, 2019. On that date last year, everyone was shocked when the airline suddenly ceased to operate. During this episode, I will go over why and how the airline skyrocketed to success, what it was like during its heyday, what caused WOW Air to fail, how its bankruptcy affected the Icelandic economy, and what’s next. 

Skúli Mogensen - The Founder of Wow Air

To me, the most logical place to start this story is with Skúli Mogensen, the founder of WOW Air. 

Born to Icelandic parents, Skúli spent much of his youth in Sweden. His dad was studying to become a physician there. He is fluent in Swedish and Icelandic. Skúli moved back to Iceland and attended high school and some college years there. He didn’t finish college because his company Oz Communications, a mobile software company, took off, so he dropped out. 

According to an interview in the Financial Post, Mogensen credits his entrepreneurial drive to his education at the University of Iceland. One of his philosophy professors encouraged him to challenge everything. He is quoting as saying in the article, 

Challenge the status quo, challenge the dogma and challenge whatever worked yesterday. I think today the speed of things requires you to ultimately — maybe not always challenge, but at least ask questions about whether what you are doing today will actually work tomorrow.Skúli´s Philosophy Professor

Skúli Dropped Out of College to be an Entreprenuer

Skúli was able to grow OZ to over 200 employees. The company sold more than 100 million copies of its messaging software to major mobile operators. Nokia ended up buying OZ communications in 2008 for an undisclosed amount. Along with starting OZ, Skúli also co-founded Íslandssimi, which is now Vodafone Iceland. Additionally, he co-founded CAOZ, a 3-D animation studio that works on production for films, commercials and games. His serial entrepreneurship made him a billionaire. After selling OZ communications, Skúli went into early retirement at the age of 40. However, he quickly grew tired of it after a couple of years.

According to a Forbes article about Skúl in 2018, he said  “I was a failure at retirement. I wanted to use technology to disrupt the market and the airline industry is a good sector for that.”

WOW Air was Born in 2011

Skúli was ready to go full force into starting an airline with his own money. His family, friends and investors urged him not to do it back in 2011. One thing to remember about this time is that Eyjafjallajökull volcano had erupted in 2010.

Even though the ash from the eruption had disrupted air travel for people around the world, the media focus on Iceland had exposed to the world that the country was home to some of the most spectacular nature. Icelandic tourism was starting to increase around that time. However, Skúli’s idea of starting a low budget airline helped skyrocket Icelandic tourism into being one of the main industry to revive Iceland after the economic crash. 

Cheap Airfare Helped to Fuel Tourism to Iceland

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