Two Canadian brothers Nick and Will Laporte have been stranded after Icelandic budget airline WOW Air shut down on Thursday.

Nick was set to fly to Sweden from Toronto while his brother Will was scheduled to fly back home to Toronto from Sweden. But both of their flights were cancelled, with both brothers saying they were confused by the lack of clear communication from the airline.

Icelandic budget airline WOW Air ceased operations on Thursday, stranding passengers across two continents. In a statement on its website, the airline, which had earlier suspended all its flights, told passengers there would be no further flights and advised them to check for flights with other airlines for ways to reach their destinations.

Nick told 麻豆影视 Channel that -- on his way to the airport -- he initially received a text message from WOW Airlines stating his flight would be delayed by half an hour.

鈥淪o no big deal,鈥� he recalled thinking. But the flight kept being pushed back. Nick said after some confusion over the status of the flight, it was eventually cancelled for good.

Will was genuinely thankful for the 鈥渧ery helpful鈥� airport staff not associated with the airline. 鈥淚 know there were some frustrated passengers that weren鈥檛 exactly polite to these people. So it was a tough situation all-around,鈥� he said.

Meanwhile, his brother Will was headed home to Canada after wrapping up his hockey season in Sweden.

He鈥檚 now stranded in Osby, Sweden. He told 麻豆影视 Channel that he had initially received an email stating his flight was being delayed by 10 hours.

鈥淏ut this morning, I read the news that they were no longer running their airline 鈥� it鈥檚 very disappointing,鈥� Will said. He was later informed by an airline employee he 鈥渨asn鈥檛 entitled to a refund.鈥�

His brother Nick said he鈥檚 since had difficulty reaching any representative from WOW Airlines, but has seen that Icelandic Airlines is to stranded passengers if they filled out a form.

鈥淚鈥檓 waiting to hear back from them and as soon as I get the green light for discounted airfare, I鈥檒l be on my way to Iceland,鈥� he said. Nick will ultimately be headed to Sweden for a training camp he hopes can help him qualify for the men鈥檚 100-metre sprint at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

鈥淪o I鈥檓 just kind of sitting tight until then,鈥� he said.

Three students from Kitchener were also affected by the shuttering. They were returning home from Copenhagen and only realized something was wrong when they reached the airline鈥檚 front desk and realized no one was there.

Erin McBurney told CTV Kitchener they had to take a costly $1,300 detour in order to return to Toronto. She said their only other options at the time were a $2,000 three-day flight with Air Canada with layovers or a $5,000 direct flight through another airline.

Other passengers have taken to twitter to voice their own frustrations with the flight cancellations.