No stopping — Wizz Air may raise fares even further, says president

Robert Carey, Chairman of Wizz Air, has issued a statement. In it, he spoke about the cancellation of flights, the difficulties caused by COVID, the effects of the war and the departure tax imposed by the Hungarian government. On the latter, he said that ticket prices may have to be increased further.

Delays, cancellations, difficulties

The runway at London Luton Airport has started melting due to the unusual heat. Wizz Air chairman Robert Carey said it was the first time in his 20-year career that a flight had been delayed or cancelled because of the incident. Stranded passengers waited days for a replacement flight. According to Carey, they had to wait to be able to safely land the replacement flight, according to an interview with 24.hu.

Carey pointed out that 153 planes have been operating so far, which has grown to 160 and will increase to 170 by September. This means that there are spare aircraft for similar cases. However, since there are Wizz Air bases at 40 airports, not all of them can have spare aircraft.

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This was the cause of another big Wizz Air scandal this summer, when passengers were stranded in Paris. The crew’s flight time expired. So for safety reasons the plane could not return with passengers. Wizz Air always strives to ensure that as few passengers as possible suffer as little damage as possible.

Wizz Air has reduced the number of flights on its schedule. This means that there are more spare aircraft and crew in the system. In addition, the schedule is more airy to allow for minor delays. “We have cancelled 5 percent of the July and August flights scheduled at the beginning of June”. Much of this was before the 14-day deadline, to give passengers time to reschedule.

Wizz Air economic situation

Wizz Air carries around 32 million passengers during the summer season, broadly defined, which runs until the end of October; 4-5 million per month. Carey believes that the airline, unlike other airports, is not facing a passenger shortage.

Carey was surprised to find so many problems in the industry. There were already capacity issues in 2019. Now, they would have had 3 years, yet they failed to prepare. “The baggage handlers knew we’d be back at some point, the security knew – everyone knew, yet everyone was completely caught off guard by this summer.”

Wizz Air’s president says the concept of an “extra profit” tax is hard to believe, because there is no such thing as “extra profit”. In fact, there is no profit in the industry at the moment.

“I don’t know of any operator that is profitable at the 2019 level, let alone at a better rate. What does that mean? Ultimately, it means that we have to get the equation right and when the price of fuel goes up, we have to pass that cost on to the passenger.”

For Wizz Air, extra services generate more revenue than tickets. Robert Carey argues that instead of a Hungarian government tax, it would be more appropriate to encourage airlines to be sustainable, writes Telex.hu.

Read alsoRyanair’s reaction to the “idiotic” departure tax: they are cancelling eight Budapest routes

Source: 24.hu, telex.hu