Good afternoon,

Seems like Wizz Air is not giving up on Vienna as they have just announced a new round of additional flights and frequencies:

Vienna – Alicante eff 17DEC19 3 weekly A321 (2 weekly from 11JAN20)
Vienna – Bremen eff 17DEC19 5 weekly A321
Vienna – Chisinau eff 28OCT19 2 weekly A320
Vienna – Naples eff 17DEC19 3 weekly A321
Vienna – Oslo eff 16DEC19 4 weekly A321
Vienna – Porto eff 18DEC19 2 weekly A321

Frequency Increase:
Vienna – Eindhoven eff 16DEC19 Increase from 2 to 4 weekly A321 operating
Vienna – Tel Aviv eff 18DEC19 Increase from 7 to 9 weekly, A321 operating

Does it mean they plan on basing another A321 at VIE? Let's see how Austrian Airlines, Lauda and Level respond to this news and if they plan on expanding their flights this coming winter season.

Source: https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... rk-in-w19/

This news is not that hot, Wizz Air announced this expansion, together with 6th aircraft based a month ago:
https://wizzair.com/en-gb/information-a ... are-routes

Lauda also announced big growth for Winter 2019/20. Austrian's answer is optimization.
If Eurowings and LEVEL will stay in Vienna, the bloodbath in Austria will continue, at least for some time.

So what's LEVEL's position in Vienna? Will they remain idle while competition grows and makes them even more irrelevant?

There is simply no place for so many low-cost carriers in Vienna.

I checked ch-aviation capacities module on capacity share for this week in VIE airport:

1 Austrian Airlines 45,16% (+1,85% LH, +1,38% Swiss)
2 Eurowings 7,75%
3 Lauda 6,75%
4 Wizz Air 5,92%
5 easyJet 3,09%
6 LEVEL 2,71%

Comparing to what is scheduled for the first week of December this year:
1 Austrian Airlines 40,52% (+3,21% LH, +1,63% Swiss)
2 Lauda 9,72%
3 Eurowings 6,83%
4 Wizz Air 5,55%
5 easyJet 3,83%
6 LEVEL 2,28%

So, Lauda is growing aggressively and easyJet is growing too. LEVEL and Eurowings are going down. Wizz Air even with growth, they are growing slower than the market. Of course, the picture may change as there are might be not all plans reflected in winter schedules as of today.

smbukas wrote:

There is simply no place for so many low-cost carriers in Vienna.

I checked ch-aviation capacities module on capacity share for this week in VIE airport:

1 Austrian Airlines 45,16% (+1,85% LH, +1,38% Swiss)
2 Eurowings 7,75%
3 Lauda 6,75%
4 Wizz Air 5,92%
5 easyJet 3,09%
6 LEVEL 2,71%

Comparing to what is scheduled for the first week of December this year:
1 Austrian Airlines 40,52% (+3,21% LH, +1,63% Swiss)
2 Lauda 9,72%
3 Eurowings 6,83%
4 Wizz Air 5,55%
5 easyJet 3,83%
6 LEVEL 2,28%

So, Lauda is growing aggressively and easyJet is growing too. LEVEL and Eurowings are going down. Wizz Air even with growth, they are growing slower than the market. Of course, the picture may change as there are might be not all plans reflected in winter schedules as of today.

I wouldn't perfectly agree with your statement. U2 is stagnant at VIE, after they dropped out of the MXP/BGY bloodbath. But they have a higher percentage in Winter, as they fly mainly business destinations from VIE (so they provide more constant capacity over the year while there is less overall capacity in the winter, thus higher percentage).

Lauda is growing quite expansive, so is Wizzair, but a bit slower. LEVEL is moving from A321 to 320s in VIE, while keeping based planes constant or even reducing a bit. Eurowings is as far as I am seeing it also constant in their offering.

On a side note, is EIN starting to become wizzairs biggest non-hub?

Maybe carriers in VIE should introduce other new routes instead of competing for the same market.

OPO-VIE will have now 3 carriers, obviously LEVEL will drop (as it happened in OPO-VLC).

IMO just in Spain there is an opportunity to link airports with no connections with VIE, such as SCQ, XRY or GRX.

Each carrier with two flights a week to OPO, doesn't seem like too much in my modest opinion. Especially when you take into account that TP sometimes takes an A330 twice a day to VIE.

Does W6 use airbridges in VIE? It will become hell now when the reconstruction of the old terminal begins. It will become an operational mess.

Blerg wrote:

Does W6 use airbridges in VIE? It will become hell now when the reconstruction of the old terminal begins. It will become an operational mess.

No, they don't. They use remote stands.

FlyRow wrote:

On a side note, is EIN starting to become wizzairs biggest non-hub?

Not quite there yet, but quite big indeed. Looking at the number of destinations served by Wizzair, Dortmund offers more than Eindhoven. However I don't know about frequencies.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

Does W6 use airbridges in VIE? It will become hell now when the reconstruction of the old terminal begins. It will become an operational mess.

No, they don't. They use remote stands.

Are you sure? I saw one of those online trip reports and there was a picture of their planes parked at the airbridge though I don't know if they were connected or not.


How big is their MMX operation? Is it smaller than EIN or DTM?

There´s an odd one out there ...

VIE-BRE 5/7 with an A321 ???
Wonder if that is not a bit of an overkill despite the route not being served by any other carrier non-stop.

Blerg wrote:

Are you sure? I saw one of those online trip reports and there was a picture of their planes parked at the airbridge though I don't know if they were connected or not.


How big is their MMX operation? Is it smaller than EIN or DTM?

Most likely the airbridge wasn't connected. Wizzair, just like Ryanair, prefers airstairs over bridges.

Malmö is actually rather small for Wizzair, much smaller than Eindhoven and Dortmund. A good number of flights have been moved from Malmö to nearby Copenhagen, but even there they're not exactly big. Even though Copenhagen is slightly more expensive when it comes to landing and handling fees, this is offset by the fact that taxes in Denmark are lower than in Sweden. Sweden has one of the highest aviation taxes in Europe. As Wizzair wants to keep it's ticket prices low, they avoid high taxes wherever they can and in this case they can do that by just hopping across the border.

MHG wrote:

There´s an odd one out there ...

VIE-BRE 5/7 with an A321 ???
Wonder if that is not a bit of an overkill despite the route not being served by any other carrier non-stop.

My guess is that the airport is desperately trying to attract more customers since its passengers numbers have either stagnated or dropped in recent years. According to airport's website, their catchment area is around 13 million people and I am sure Wizz Air hopes to stimulate some demand through attractive fares, they are selling one way fares for as little as €15.
Wizz Air is also adding flights from Olsztyn while they already fly there from Gdansk, Kiev and Skopje.

Blerg wrote:

MHG wrote:

There´s an odd one out there ...

VIE-BRE 5/7 with an A321 ???
Wonder if that is not a bit of an overkill despite the route not being served by any other carrier non-stop.

My guess is that the airport is desperately trying to attract more customers since its passengers numbers have either stagnated or dropped in recent years. According to airport's website, their catchment area is around 13 million people and I am sure Wizz Air hopes to stimulate some demand through attractive fares, they are selling one way fares for as little as €15.
Wizz Air is also adding flights from Olsztyn while they already fly there from Gdansk, Kiev and Skopje.

Exactly W6 loves a place like Bremen. I need of service, with a large population and has a strong expat community.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Are you sure? I saw one of those online trip reports and there was a picture of their planes parked at the airbridge though I don't know if they were connected or not.

How big is their MMX operation? Is it smaller than EIN or DTM?

Largest Wizz Air (excl. Wizz Air UK) capacities offered this week from non-bases (ch-aviation capacities data):
1. Dortmund: 22.584;
2. Eindhoven: 17.123;
3. Barcelona: 13.410;
4. Bergamo: 13.410;
5. Tel Aviv: 13.370;
6. Charleroi: 10.120;
7. Oslo Torp: 9.600;
8. Memmingen: 9.330;
9. Stockholm Skavsta: 9.293;
10. Malmo: 8.800.

I wonder if a route such as Dortmund-Memmingen could work for them.

Blerg wrote:

I wonder if a route such as Dortmund-Memmingen could work for them.

Not really their market.

MCTSET wrote:

Blerg wrote:

I wonder if a route such as Dortmund-Memmingen could work for them.

Not really their market.

Why not? Things change. Last year people would claim the same for some routes they operate today (MMX-VIE or MXP-VIE being adequate examples).

Blerg wrote:

MCTSET wrote:

Blerg wrote:

I wonder if a route such as Dortmund-Memmingen could work for them.

Not really their market.

Why not? Things change. Last year people would claim the same for some routes they operate today (MMX-VIE or MXP-VIE being adequate examples).

However Vienna is a hub for them, that changes things. Neither Dortmund nor Memmingen are hubs. Of course they could fly it in a Z-pattern, but I doubt if they'll do that.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

MCTSET wrote:

Not really their market.

Why not? Things change. Last year people would claim the same for some routes they operate today (MMX-VIE or MXP-VIE being adequate examples).

However Vienna is a hub for them, that changes things. Neither Dortmund nor Memmingen are hubs. Of course they could fly it in a Z-pattern, but I doubt if they'll do that.

But my question was not so much about the operational aspect of the route, more if there would be actual demand for them to fly a domestic German route like the one mentioned before.

Blerg wrote:

But my question was not so much about the operational aspect of the route, more if there would be actual demand for them to fly a domestic German route like the one mentioned before.

Ryanair tried Bremen-Memmingen. Didn't last long.

I wouldn't call VIE a hub for W6; rather a base, or do they offer any connecting flights?!?

alm1 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

But my question was not so much about the operational aspect of the route, more if there would be actual demand for them to fly a domestic German route like the one mentioned before.

Ryanair tried Bremen-Memmingen. Didn't last long.

Interesting, didn't know that. How long did it last for and when was it operated?

Wizz Air announces the termination of Vienna-Tuzla starting from the 2019 winter timetable. I think this route underperformed from the start as it was already reduced once.

https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/07/wi ... rvice.html