Nordic budget airline Primera Air is going out of business, after 14 years of operations. Thousands of passengers are stranded. Many of them are US citizens trying to return home.

Primera Air has ceased flying ahead of filing for bankruptcy. Stansted Airport said on Monday that travellers due to fly with the airline should not travel to the airport and instead contact Primera Air directly. The budget carrier, which is Icelandic owned but based in Copenhagen, said that it was ceasing all operations from today. It did not provide information on ticket refunds.

On this sad day we are saying goodbye to all of you, Primera Air said in a statement on its website.

The low-cost carrier began in 2003 and has served 97 destinations in more than 20 countries. Mainly flying between Scandinavia and European holiday destinations, the airline has started branching out into low-cost flights from Europe to North America, with fares as low as $149 each way. Last year the ultra-low cost airline announced an ambitious plan of flights from the UK to USA and Canada but before the operations had even begun, the budget carrier dropped a number of flights.

Transatlantic routes from London Stansted to Washington, Newark, Boston and Toronto were operated on old Boeing planes rather than new Airbus A321neo. The airline had promised nonstop flights from Stansted to New York’s Newark Airport, but the Boeing 737-800 aircraft didn’t even have the fuel capacity to fly that far. With a range of under 3,000 miles, the plane had to land in Iceland to refuel despite claims. Primera Air blames the collapse on late deliveries from Airbus.

Main photo: Primera Air

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