Brutal ticket price rise at Hungarian Wizz Air
A Hungarian news outlet noticed that the Hungary-based low-cost airline, Wizz Air, increased ticket prices significantly in just one step. Furthermore, the company also standardised the prices. Below, you can read the details.
Wizz Air increased prices significantly and without explanation
According to okosutas.hu, they wanted to write an article about Wizz Air’s low prices. For example, they found tickets to Oslo and Porto for only 3,980 HUF (less than 10 EUR). Moreover, Barcelona was reachable from Budapest for only 10,000 HUF in September (25 EUR). However, suddenly the Hungarian airline increased its prices and standardised them. They created two categories: 5,940 HUF (EUR 15) and 15,740 HUF (39 EUR).
The traditionally cheap flight routes fall into the first category: Brussels (Belgium), Milan (Italy) and Burgas in Bulgaria. However, most prices went up to 39 EUR, including Porto, Oslo, Paris, and London. Okosutas.hu says that
all ticket prices changed accordingly until next March.
The only exceptions are those routes that have been more expensive than the 39 euro threshold. For example, Tenerife and Dubai remained above that amount. The news outlet argued they did not know whether what happened was an error or an intentional standardisation. However, they promised they would follow the news related to the issue.
Wizz Air CEO warns that travel problems cannot be solved quickly
József Váradi, the CEO of the low-cost Hungarian airline, talked about the problems the flight and travel sector are struggling with in a Politico podcast. “There is no quick fix to the aviation industry’s problems”, he highlighted. He added that governments underestimated the sector’s recovery speed after the pandemic and called the strikes of the airport workers “incredibly unhelpful.”
Politico.eu says traffic this summer is expected to reach more than 90 percent of the pre-covid level. However, there are staff shortages and strikes. The results are queues at the airports, delays, and cancellations.
“I don’t think anyone should be expecting a sudden improvement,”
Váradi said. He added that the airline made changes to its flying patterns to try and avoid disruption.
Váradi slammed the governments, saying that they did not do everything for a quick restart in the sector. “Air-traffic management is a state-run organization, so governments should have done a lot better in terms of anticipating what’s coming, and making sure that their systems are up to speed to satisfy demand,” he said. “This is the time to serve the travelling public, who are also voters for governments. The public interest is to make sure we go through this period as smoothly as possible.
We don’t need any further distraction“,
he added.
Source: okosutas.hu, politico.eu