Hungarian Wizz Air officially beat Ryanair in the war of low-cost airlines

When it comes to low-cost airlines, the smaller the budget, the better. In 2018, Wizz Air managed to go below the budget of the much larger Irish airline Ryanair. This was largely due to the introduction of the new generation of A321neo plane, which is the most efficient and economical model in the world.

The Irish Ryanair has been the epitome of low-cost airlines which aim at minimising all costs in order to offer their flights for a much cheaper price than regular plane tickets at any other airline. The introduction of ultra-low-cost flights was really a game-changer in the industry, and it contributed to the increase of air traffic to a huge extent.

Button

Ryanair was the perfect example to follow when Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air was founded. So much so, that Wizz Air is also known as “the Eastern European Ryanair”. Wizz Air celebrates its 15th birthday this year.

2019 is also the year when Wizz Air introduced their newest plane, the new-generation A321neo, which is supposed to be a much quieter and economical model than its predecessors, Forbes writes. The A321neo is also the most efficient narrow-bodied plane in the world.

Luckily, Wizz Air is planning to add six other A321neo planes to its fleet in Budapest within the next couple of months. József Váradi, the CEO of Wizz Air, states that in this line of business, the airline with the absolute lowest cost wins.

The most important aspect for these airlines is the average cost per seat. In this respect, Wizz Air managed to beat Ryanair.

In other words, Wizz Air manages to operate with lower costs than Ryanair, which is almost three times bigger (2.5x) than Wizz Air. Introducing the A321neo had a major role in winning this “competition” between Ryanair and Wizz Air, as Ryanair still uses the Boeing 737 planes.

József Váradi told Forbes that it was very motivational to have such a company as Ryanair in front of them, someone to catch up to. Now, however, as they managed to “beat” Ryanair in costs, the company needs to find new tasks, new goals.

Passengers will most likely notice no difference in the new A321neo planes, as they look very similar to the previous ones. Even though there are 9 more seats in the new planes (239 seats altogether), the leg space is exactly the same as before. The arrangement of emergency exits changes a little bit, but it is not prominent.

Featured image: Facebook.com/wizzaircom

Source: www.forbes.hu