Hungarian Wizz Air in trouble: several popular flights could be cancelled
The Hungarian low-cost airline, Wizz Air, is struggling in West Europe but is performing well in the East. However, the company’s troubles with several Western routes may result in a flight cancellation wave affecting even Hungary and Budapest.
Wizz Air struggling in West Europe
According to simpleflying.com, Wizz Air’s Western flights to popular winter destinations like Chania (Greece), Funchal (Madeira, Portugal), Tenerife South (Spain), Keflavik (Greece), Malaga (Spain), and Ohrid (North Macedonia), Olsztyn-Mazury (Poland), and Palanga (Lithuania) will be ceased. The author, James Pearson, explained the reason that all the flights on those routes appear as ‘sold out’ in the company’s booking system.
He wrote that Wizz Air cut more routes than other airlines due to the speed of its expansion “and the experimentation of specific routes, although projected demand and performance are fully forecasted.” The author says the Hungarian low-cost airline’s performance was worse in West Europe. For instance, they cannot operate extremely popular flights like the one between London-Gatwick and Tenerife (Spain) profitably. The seat load factor a week before the departure of a plane in January was only 38 pc, Mr Person wrote. The market is supposed to be thriving in that month. Almost 100 thousand passengers flew between London and Tenerife in January 2020, he added.
Wizz Air leaves England, Italy?
When examining the reasons why Wizz Air has been performing poorly in West Europe, the author mentions the lack of brand awareness. On top of that, there are many delays, cancellations and schedule changes. That generates distrust and paints the airline in an unfavourable light regarding reliability. Although it is cheap in West Europe, customers do not tolerate poor service.
Okosutas.hu says that Wizz Air would not necessarily cancel the London flights. It might lower their frequency if they cannot bring the requested seat reservation rates. However, they argue that despite Wizz Air offering seats for EUR 10 between London and Tenerife, Madeira, they could not fill their planes with travellers. Thus, there must be some underlying issues.
The Hungarian media outlet specialising in travel news says that Wizz Air’s Eastern European flights were very popular among tourists and employees working abroad. However, the company struggles with the West routes. For example, EasyJet can fill their planes with passengers for GPB 50-60, while Wizz Air cannot do so despite they offer tickets for only GBP 10.
In England, Wizz Air entered an intense competition, which they do not seem to win. Okosutas.hu believes one factor may have been the extremely high baggage prices.
Okosutas.hu reckons that the low-cost airline would not pump money forever into its expansion in Italy and the United Kingdom. The question is where they will shift their focus next provided they leave those two above-mentioned markets.
Read alsoWizz Air chaos: Hungarians stuck in Abu Dhabi without food, water
Source: okosutas.hu, simpleflying.com
6 Comments
The UK flight problem is: neither Gatwick nor Luton are nice to fly from or to. If they could have shared some Ryan space to Stansted they would have done better! Even Heathrow! And Manchester!
The problem is that they don’t have free customer service available as they should, if you need to call them they will charge 2-3 euros per minute! and also if it proves to be your fault there is another charge on top of that! And god knows how long you have to wait on the phone. And the baggage charges are incredible, how can you compete with other airlines when you’re selling a return ticket for £20 but charge £70 for a 10kg cabin luggage. Ryanair will sell the same flights for about the same price but they only charge £20-£25 for the luggage, that’s almost half of what Wizzair is offering so no competition there at all… That’s leaving aside the non existent customer service, reliability, and other things. Paying £10 but you’re not sure if you’re actually going to fly, who wants that?
I know I was charged a ridiculous amount to call Wizz air ..just to be put on hold and when someone came on..I got my bill after it cost me € 60!!! For the call to Wizz air! And yes the luggage prices are extremely high too! You can’t even email them!! If anyone knows an email address could u share it please with me…
Wizz have a number of convenient routes and prices are generally low at less popular departure times, that is early morning or late flights. Fleet is generally new and nice. Service on board is usually resonate. Customer care (they seemingly don’t) feels desperately lacking when there is one of the frequent changes or cancellations. My flight from Gatwick was cancelled leaving me with no human to contact and a hotel bill for £220. Five months after claiming I am still waiting for what is required by international law to be paid to me. The airline does not seem to hold any value in repeat business, which I assume makes the job of filling the aircraft seats more difficult. I am now inclined to use other budget or non budget airlines instead of risking more financial loss. I note the route I was cancelled on was frequently very late or often cancelled, so this was no unforeseen one off, but poor management. Shame really.
I am Siddeeque Ali Kurungadan.
Let me explain my bitter experience with Wizzair.
They cancelled the flight from Muscat to Abu Dhabi. Even after repeated request to them by my travel agent, they didn’t refund the ticket cost.
Please help if anybody can.
Although I absolutely HATE Wizz Air now (as they COMPLETELY messed me around when cancelling our Summer ’23 flights to Madeira), I’ve always managed to call Wizz Air FOR FREE (in the UK) & get through to someone pretty quickly – so just wanted to share the number all with you: 0330 977 0444.
They say the number is only for people needing ‘special assistance’… whatever that means… BUT each time I’ve called, the Customer Service Agent was able to:
1. amend my daughter’s Passport number (when I tried to check-in for a flight last Summer and what I entered didn’t match whatever they had),
2. change my booking (free of charge) twice. When they cancelled / rescheduled my Summer 23 flights back on Oct 22 and again in Dec 22
3. process a refund (without too much fuss) when they cancelled all routes to Madiera last week
Don’t get me wrong… I still HATE them for what they’ve just done (cancelled all routes to Madeira), as I’ve just had to pay nearly DOUBLE with another airline… but at least this phone number DOES seem to work for me ok!
Hope this helps!