22 famous airlines that have gone out of business

AP Photo/Wally Fong

Icelandic ultra-low-cost carrier Wow Air ceased operations on Thursday.
The seven-year-old airline shut down operations after failing to secure a fresh round of investment from Icelandair and private equity firm Indigo Partners.
Wow Air is the third European airline to go out of business this year after Germania and British Midland Regional shut down in February.
Here’s a list of 23 airlines that went bust over the past couple of decades.

Icelandic ultra-low-cost carrier Wow Air ceased operations on Thursday. The seven-year-old airline shut down operations after failing to secure a fresh round of investment from Icelandair and private equity firm Indigo Partners.

Wow Air joins British Midland Regional and Germania as the third European airline to go bust in 2019 amid stiff competition along with political and economic instability.

Over the past two decades, a number of well-known airline brands have disappeared from the aviation landscape. A large number of these brands have gone away due to mergers as airlines joined together in order to survive the brutally competitive market place.

Northwest and Delta merged to form the new Delta Air Lines. United and Continental merged to create the new United Airlines with planes painted in Continental livery. TWA was acquired by American Airlines. America West and US Air merged to become US Airways. American Airlines and US Airways then merged to form a new American Airlines under US Airways management. Virgin America was acquired by Alaska Airlines while AirTran Airways and Morris Air were acquired by Southwest Airlines.

In Canada, Canadian Airlines was merged into Air Canada. While in Brazil, Varig was acquired by Gol. The UK’s British Caledonian and British Midland were both acquired by British Airways, itself created by the 1974 merger of British Overseas Airways Corporation, British European Airways, and two smaller regional carriers.

But with the sudden collapse of Wow Air in mind, we at Business Insider decided to compile a list of airlines that went out of business the old fashioned way, running out of money.

Here’s a closer look.

Lakers Airways Skytrain: defunct 1982.

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Founded by Sir Freddie Laker in 1966, the airline and its fleet of McDonnell Douglas DC-10 "Skytrains" promised low-cost travel across Atlantic for half the price of its competitors. Unfortunately, the airline could not sustain the business and collapsed under the weight of £270 million of debt in February 1982.

Braniff international Airways: defunct 1982.

Wikimedia Commons/clipperarctic/CC BY-SA 2.0,

The Texas-based airline was one of the most interesting and colorful companies in the business from its unique multi-color livery to its Emilio Pucci designer flight attendant uniforms. Sadly, the airline went belly up in May 1982 after racking up $733 million in debt. Subsequent attempts to revive the brand have proven to be unsuccessful.

Eastern Air Lines: defunct 1991.

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Miami-based Eastern Air Lines was one of the biggest names in the US airline business. Unfortunately, Eastern was plagued by labor strife and an inability to compete effectively post-deregulation. Eastern filed for bankruptcy in 1989 before ending flight operations in January 1991.

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Source: Business Insider – bzhang@businessinsider.com (Benjamin Zhang)