Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.11.2018, Blaðsíða 6

Beleaguered budget airline WOW
Air has been completely bought out
by Icelandair Group, Viðskiptablaðið
reports. The board of Icelandair Group
bought every share in WOW Air, pend-
ing approval from Icelandair share-
holders and the Icelandic Competition
Authority.
“WOW Air has built up a strong
brand over the years, and accom-
plished a lot under that brand, to and
from Iceland over the Atlantic Ocean,”
acting director of Icelandair Group Bogi
Nils Bogason said in a statement. “It’s a
great opportunity for earnings, but the
airline will continue to operate under
its own initiative and under its own
brand.”
Paid in shares
MBL reports that WOW Air’s value is
currently 2.1 billion ISK; roughly just
over 17 million USD. With this buyout,
WOW Air owners will now own a 5.4%
share of Icelandair Group, as WOW
Air was bought entirely with shares
in Icelandair Group. The buyers are
obliged to hold onto some of these
shares for at least six months, and the
remainder for 12 months total.
Skúli Mogensen, the director and
founder of WOW Air, said he was “very
proud of our accomplishments and
what we have built in recent years,”
saying that the buyout represents a
“new chapter” for the airline to grow
and expand its reach.
Cornering the market
Indeed, their combined share of air
traffic to and from Iceland is nearly
80%, with the buyout giving Icelandair
Group control of the vast majority of
flights to and from Iceland.
As reported, WOW Air has struggled
with significant financial losses, even
while growing its market share. With
the combination of the two airlines,
WOW Air could add more destinations
to its roster with the help of Icelandair’s
resources.
The rule in Iceland
before 1990 was
basically this: If it’s
good, it’s prob-
ably banned. For
example, beer was
banned until 1989.
It didn’t change the
fact that Iceland-
ers were free to
get shitfaced
on undrinkable
hard liquor. But
the government
thought that beer
would really screw
up the nation and
we would end up
as useless drunks
should it ever
be legalised. The
government had an
even more sinister
take on candy.
There were strict
rules about import-
ing sweets to
Iceland until the
80s. The result was
that baby boom-
ers thought that
oranges and apples
were candy, not
disgusting fruits.
But the candy pio-
neers had a trick
up their sleeve
— the “biscuit”
Prince Polo.
Known colloqui-
ally as “Prins
Póló,” this
fairly basic
chocolate bar
hails from
the beautiful
nation of in Poland,
and first hit the
shelves there in
1955. That same
year, Iceland made
a trade deal with
Poland, wherein
they got our fish,
and well, we got
whatever we hadn’t
already banned
from being import-
ed to the country.
This was obviously
a complicated task.
Although Iceland-
ers would have
appreciated the
tasty Polish beer
Żywiec, we needed
to find something
Icelanders were
interested in buy-
ing. The wholesaler,
Ásbjörn Ólafsson,
found out that
Prince Polo was not
only a chocolate,
but also a biscuit
— a clever move
that allowed him
to circumvent the
rules of the fun po-
lice in government.
His scheme worked.
The “biscuit” was
a smash hit and
still is. In the year
2014 the average
Icelander ate half a
kilo of these sweet
rebellious suckers.
VG
Icelandair Group To Buy
Out WOW Air
Combined, they control nearly
80% of the market share
Words:
Andie Fontaine
Photo:
WOW Air
First
The type of telescope used depends
on the type of wavelength it would
be observing. In case of optical or
near infrared telescopes, Iceland
is not a good location. For infrared
telescopes, you would want high
mountains to get above as much
of the atmosphere as possible. You
would also want clear skies and dark
nights, with a stable atmosphere.
Even though the nights are dark and
long in Iceland, the sky is often over-
cast and the atmosphere is not sta-
ble. Our mountains are also not very
tall and many are active volcanoes.
A better wavelength for Iceland
would be radio or millimeter. The
atmosphere is mostly transparent
in these wavelengths and observa-
tions are not impeded by sunlight or
cloud cover. However, in that case,
Iceland is not any more special than
other countries. The geological ac-
tivity of Iceland is also not helpful
for telescope arrays that need a
consistent location to be efficient.
There is some benefit in the sparse
population, because human activi-
ties hinder observations in the radio
band. These arrays also produce a
lot of data that has to be processed
using large computer farms. Iceland
may have a beneficial location in re-
lation to cooling costs due to the
cooler climates in comparison to
warmer places.
Ultimately, building an array of
telescopes is expensive and so is
their maintenance. It would be pos-
sible to seek external funding for a
well-defined project that benefited
from being located in Iceland, but at
the moment there are no such pro-
jects.
ASK A
Physicist
Q: Why are there no tele-
scope arrays in Iceland?
6 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 20— 2018
FOOD OF
ICELAND
NEWS
Pr
in
s
Pó
ló
WOW Air director and founder Skúli Mogensen
Words: Mulan/Guðlaugur Jóhannesson
Photo: Kristinn Ingvarsson
VOLCANO &
EARTHQUAKE
EXHIBITION
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