This WOW Air Flight Review is part of the Whose Land? Iceland Trip Report which covers the following cities:
You’ve seen the ads: $99 to Iceland. For that price, you can put me in a Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach chicken filled flight with a crate as my seat. Luckily for us travelers, WOW Air is quite the step up from the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom airplane.
Having said that, passengers should understand a few things before booking a flight on WOW. The first is the stingy bag restriction. Unless you want to pay extra, the maximum you can bring on the plane is a carry-on weighing 5 kilos. I took it as a personal challenge to go to Iceland for five nights and stay under the weight limit. (I sort of cheated but that will be explained in the following post which provides a full review of The World’s Greatest Travel Jacket) With no laptop, no Jambox all I had was a small backpack and a huge bottle of vodka that I purchased at the duty-free.
My traveling companion, Michael Jeries, was aware of the weight restriction but relied on his extensive experience flying Spirit Airlines to boldly predict that they would not enforce the limitation. He was wrong, sort of. When he went to check in, the agent weighed his bag and said he was 3 kilos over. He could either remove the 3 kilos or pay $49. A savvy traveler, Michael removed the heavy articles from his bag to bring it into compliance. After our boarding passes were printed, he put the stuff back in the bag and we went to the gate.
Being extra frugal, neither of us paid for a seat assignment. Unsurprisingly, we were both assigned middle seats. For me, so long as a flight is under five hours, I can mentally tolerate sitting anywhere. I know that the days of flying first may come to an end if this so I use experiences such as this to get tougher (see post: How to Survive a 17 Hour Flight). Children crying, annoying neighbors who use their reading light unnecessarily, and IFE’s that malfunction will not get the best of me. Bracing for the middle seat misery, I made my way down the aisle. When I got to my seat, a gracious couple offered me the window seat so much for my mental toughness preparation.
With just under six hours before we reached Iceland, I thought I would explore the WOW Air entertainment offerings. Since there was no TV and no Wi-Fi, this consisted of opening and closing the window shade to see if the sun would ever go away. It also consisted of ordering the 2 beer special. Note: the airline does take cash but many of the passengers’ cards were not working. I handed the flight attendant my portfolio of cards just in case but my SPG one worked straight away.
I didn’t order any food because it was extra and I didn’t order more beer because I didn’t want to bother the nice couple by having to go to the bathroom.
Overall, the flight was more than tolerable. For $228 (excluding Amtrak, bag fees, food and drink charges), I would certainly recommend WOW air as a cheap option for getting to Iceland.
And now this:
