A significant portion of Wizz Air’s grounded Airbus A321neo fleet, affected by Pratt & Whitney engine issues, is being stored at the former military airport of Bydgoszcz Ignacy Jan Paderewski in Poland. The grounded A321neo/A320neo planes can be seen in a video from the AviSpace channel, which captured a flight between Warsaw and Bydgoszcz.
Lots of Wizz Air aircraft grounded in Poland
PrtSc: YouTube/AviSpace (Full Flight | LOT Polish Airlines | Embraer 175 | Warsaw-Bydgoszcz | [4K60])As the plane taxis towards the terminal, over 20 Wizz Air aircraft, mostly without engines and in long-term storage, are visible across the former military base, AIRportal.hu reports.
According to Wizz Air’s latest update from the end of June, the airline had to ground 46 Airbus A320neo and A321neo aircraft due to contamination of key parts in the new generation Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM GTF engines.
As AIRportal.hu reported back in August, nearly 500 A320neo planes are grounded globally. It’s expected that an average of 350 aircraft will undergo engine inspections and maintenance simultaneously through 2026.
With a limited number of replacement engines available, some planes could remain out of service for up to a year.
Each affected aircraft is likely to remain grounded for around 300 days while the engines are refurbished with new parts.
The long repair time is due to the complex nature of the process: engines must be removed, transported to manufacturer-approved service centers with limited capacity, and almost entirely disassembled to replace the affected components.
