WOW Air, known for $99 Europe fares, to fly from Pittsburgh

WOW Air's inaugural flight to Baltimore/Washington International Airport gets a water-cannon salute on May 8, 2015. (Photo: WOW Air)

WOW Air, the Icelandic discounter known for its $99 one-way fares to Europe, appears set to make Pittsburgh its latest U.S. destination.

WOW would begin flying from Pittsburgh on June 16, operating four weekly flights to its hub near Reykjavik. WOW offers connections via Reykjavik to nearly two dozen European destinations, including Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Milan and Paris.

The new service has not been officially announced in the USA. Pittsburgh International has scheduled a 10 a.m. ET press conference to announce a "new carrier's" plan to offer trans-Atlantic service from the city. But the news of WOW Air's arrival has been reported by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and by several European publications.

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"Pittsburgh is certainly a destination on the rise and one that will appeal to a wide range of Irish travelers looking to discover somewhere different, so we're thrilled to add the destination to our route list," WOW founder and CEO Skúli Mogensen tells The Irish Times of Dublin.

WOW typically debuts its new U.S. destinations by rolling sale fares of $99 one-way to Iceland and $149 connecting destinations elsewhere in Europe. A similar sale is expected later today when the route is formally announced.

WOW will use 200-seat Airbus A321 narrowbody jets on the route, according to the Post-Gazette. WOW flies those aircraft on several of its other nonstop routes from Iceland to the U.S. East Coast, including Baltimore/Washington and Boston

The announcement signals WOW's continued rapid expansion in North America; the airline has now announced service to seven U.S. airports and two in Canada.

It's also a shot in the arm for Pittsburgh International Airport. It once was one of the USA's busiest airports, operating as a global connecting hub for US Airways. But Pittsburgh has been struggling to rebuild its flight schedule following US Airways' decision to dismantle its Pittsburgh hub in the mid-2000s. By 2010, hundreds of flights had been dropped from Pittsburgh's overall flight schedule. The city also lost most of the prestigious trans-Atlantic routes that once operated from there.

Pittsburgh managed to secure one route to Europe, but Delta's nonstop flights to Paris have operated only seasonally during the past nine years.

Now, WOW Air will give Pittsburgh its first year-round transatlantic service since 2010.

"This will mark the 64th nonstop destination served from Pittsburgh International Airport, up from 37 destinations just two years ago, part of a 70% increase," the airport added in its statement ahead of Monday's official announcement.

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Source: WOW Air, known for $99 Europe fares, to fly from Pittsburgh