airlinenavigato wrote:

Another route with high fares is LTN->TLV.

Due to the £82 APD.

Still Wizz offers fares on a few days from £54 ^^.

Indeed they're making losses on some of these tickets, basically they take money from the marketing budget and haul it over to the operational budget to sponsor those tickets. Their aim is that people talk about those low fares which is the best marketing they can wish for.

Still it could be done cheaper one-stop, I've seen offers Luton - Sofia - Tel Aviv as low as €25 or something like that. Downside to that is that it would probably be an overnight stop at Sofia, you arrive there late in the evening and depart early thing in the morning. It's only a few hours in Sofia, however those few hours being at night isn't exactly the most fun. The return flight does come with a very convenient one-stop schedule however since that one isn't subject to APD it makes less sense there.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Indeed they're making losses on some of these tickets, basically they take money from the marketing budget and haul it over to the operational budget to sponsor those tickets. Their aim is that people talk about those low fares which is the best marketing they can wish for.

The big money Wizz and Ryanair earn in the holiday seasons. But as it makes no sense to cut the capacity in half in the non-holiday season, low fares are used to get the planes full.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Still it could be done cheaper one-stop, I've seen offers Luton - Sofia - Tel Aviv as low as €25 or something like that.

Yes still available
https://www.kiwi.com/ee/search/results/ ... rtBy=price

As Ryanair and Wizz launched many routes to TLV, there are a lot airports to do the self-hubbing.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

you arrive there late in the evening and depart early thing in the morning. It's only a few hours in Sofia, however those few hours being at night isn't exactly the most fun.

There should be a filter in flight searches to hide those connections. I will not sleep inside an airport.

Good luck finding a seat for LTN-TLV for £54 in normal times when passengers who are not citizens can enter a country freely and not have to quaratine. In 2019, those £54 fares were near impossible to find - they make for great bait-and-switch advertising to bring customers to your website

i stated some £54 fares being available now

Alternatives to high fares on London-Tel Aviv were given.

Coma993 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

Wizz Air to expand its network from BEG this December. They will launch BCN, HHN, BLL and VXO. Interestingly enough all flights will be operated by the A320. Either Wizz Air will downgrade one of their two A321 or they will be adding a third plane to their Belgrade base.

All flights are already in the system.

They will base a third plane in BEG.

Seems like they are basing a third plane, A320. I suppose we can expect another round of expansion for flights starting from summer 2022. Since it's smaller capacity I expect more holiday destinations such as Rhodes or Corfu among others ... maybe PMI.

Blerg wrote:

Coma993 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

Wizz Air to expand its network from BEG this December. They will launch BCN, HHN, BLL and VXO. Interestingly enough all flights will be operated by the A320. Either Wizz Air will downgrade one of their two A321 or they will be adding a third plane to their Belgrade base.

All flights are already in the system.

They will base a third plane in BEG.

Seems like they are basing a third plane, A320. I suppose we can expect another round of expansion for flights starting from summer 2022. Since it's smaller capacity I expect more holiday destinations such as Rhodes or Corfu among others ... maybe PMI.

Exactly what I thought, interesting the amount of expansion in the balkans, it is an underserved region but there has been so much focus their recently by W6.

Wizz continues to fly to Dubai DXB instead of AUH from Sofia, Budapest and Bucharest until Oct 27.

That makes it possible to visit the World Expo from Oct 1 without the detour and entry regulations of Abu Dhabi.

The third stationed aircraft in Belgrade lets Wizz Air "introduce an extra three routes", which havn't made public yet.

https://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/08/wi ... n.html?m=1

—

Btw on a.net is now a Ryanair News and Discussion Thread:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1464031

airlinenavigato wrote:

The third stationed aircraft in Belgrade lets Wizz Air "introduce an extra three routes", which havn't made public yet.

https://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/08/wi ... n.html?m=1

—

Btw on a.net is now a Ryanair News and Discussion Thread:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1464031

On another forum someone wrote that one of them will be Lisbon starting from 06.2022. The last time they announced it they had a pretty horrible schedule with a middle of the night arrival into BEG. I guess they can afford to do so since they have no competition.
Hopefully other two destinations are to a sunny destination.

Even with a monopoly, there is a limit as to what many people will tolerate. A scheduled arrival at maybe 0300 will decrease demand - not everyone is a poor migrant worker who earns 4 euros per hour

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Even with a monopoly, there is a limit as to what many people will tolerate. A scheduled arrival at maybe 0300 will decrease demand - not everyone is a poor migrant worker who earns 4 euros per hour

Unfortunately they are also lucky as fares are quite high for flights via various hubs. We are talking about €400 and higher. Was looking for flights to Malaga with LH for December and they are €350 without luggage.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Even with a monopoly, there is a limit as to what many people will tolerate. A scheduled arrival at maybe 0300 will decrease demand - not everyone is a poor migrant worker who earns 4 euros per hour

or well-off people who see it as a game to find and book low fares

The Wizz Air Abu Dhabi plane A6-WZD was flown to Al Ain 5 days ago.

Looks like lower parking costs than in AUH. Planespotters.com says it's parked. Could be because of the low flying demand to AUH due to the strict entry regulations of Abu Dhabi.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/a6-wzd

airlinenavigato wrote:

The Wizz Air Abu Dhabi plane A6-WZD was flown to Al Ain 5 days ago.

I wonder if they'll ever fly the Gemma Collins aircraft out to AUH?

airlinenavigato wrote:

The Wizz Air Abu Dhabi plane A6-WZD was flown to Al Ain 5 days ago.

Looks like lower parking costs than in AUH. Planespotters.com says it's parked. Could be because of the low flying demand to AUH due to the strict entry regulations of Abu Dhabi.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/a6-wzd

Mostly lack of space in AUH to park aircraft, in general, and even more now that AUH is used as a stop to evacuate people from Kabul

myki wrote:

I wonder if they'll ever fly the Gemma Collins aircraft out to AUH?

I would like that!

Maybe Wizz gonna hire an expat influencer from the UAE saying:

"I cannot wait to fly home every week"

Wizz gonna have their biggest roadshow for recruiting cabin crew. What I find nice that they also recruit and train (mostly female) cabin crew to become a pilot.

In the news text it was again mentioned:
"Wizz Air plans to triple the size of its fleet to 500 aircraft in the coming ten years."

I thought it was just a wish of Varadi, if market conditions become in favor of that.

So we can see a big Airbus purchase soon?

https://hungarytoday.hu/wizz-air-flight-attendant/

airlinenavigato wrote:

"Wizz Air plans to triple the size of its fleet to 500 aircraft in the coming ten years."

If Wizz Air manages to triple their fleet and knowing they already operate NEO engines, what are the chances Wizz Air will also triple their CO2 and other emissions in the next ten years?

Reducing the CO2 emissions of electricity generation and road transport has a much bigger impact.




For aviation it's the most difficult to reduce the CO2 to zero. Into cars there can be put batteries, that would be to big and heavy in planes.

Let's say until 2030 Wizz gonna phase out all A320ceo and A321ceo, and they still gonna have in 2030 the 40 neos, which they own now. Those will be then up to 11 years old.

For achieving 500 planes Wizz needs to double its current outstanding order and get additional 227 planes.

Cool charts but they don't change the fact. If Wizz Air triples the fleet in ten years it will triple the emissions.

Lowcosters pride themselves for uncovering growth passenger niche that didn’t typically travel by air until they offered fares as low as 10 or 20€.

Attitudes are changing. Fur clothing went from appealing to frowned upon in a relatively short span. Consumer attitude about unnecessary day trip on a low cost airline taken just because the price was 20€ could experience similar change in a short timeframe.

fly2moon wrote:

If Wizz Air triples the fleet in ten years it will triple the emissions.

On a very low level. If the amount of gasoline driven cars or fossil fuel power plants triple until 2030, that's a much bigger problem.

fly2moon wrote:

Lowcosters pride themselves for uncovering growth passenger niche that didn’t typically travel by air until they offered fares as low as 10 or 20€.

From 10-20€ they cannot exist. The average fare + ancillaries is higher. 10-20€ are a marketing instrument for days with lower demand.

fly2moon wrote:

Consumer attitude about unnecessary day trip on a low cost airline taken just because the price was 20€ could experience similar change in a short timeframe.

Also the percentage of 20€ day trips of all flights is very low.

If you'd like to write more about (U)LCC growth, please open up a new thread to not be to much off-topic in this specific Wizz Air thread.

I simply do not see wizz at 500 aircraft, despite all of their efficient and competitive flying, there is simply no room in today’s market for them.

The biggest problem for W6 growth and even they are complaining about it is airport capacity, Wizz is the new entrant to the market, the Western European market they are pushing full has many established airlines that there biggest advantage is their entrenchment. They will find it hard to displace these airlines especially with many being supported by governments.

My main point is that I don’t doubt the potential market for W6 to expand to 500 aircraft but the airport capacity is not in place for unless significant infrastructure spending is implemented in the near term.

Not only the airport capacity but airspace capacity as well. The summer of 2019 was living (flying) hell. Since the big airline covid bankruptcy scenario forecasted by the "visionary" did not happen it might be a real problem in short term again and will limit such scale of expansion. Besides Wizz never ever got close to its own expansion forecasts which will be the case here as well.

Personally I could see them reach 500 planes at some point but only if they keep on expanding to new markets beyond Europe. There are still many markets where they could expand.

We have seen from their experience in Austria, Norway and Germany that they can't break through that easily into well established Western European markets. They seem to be doing ok in the UK and Italy though.

Also don't forget about something else. They are big in the old Communist East - basically everything from Latvia all the way down to Greece. This is a market that is still developing and where more and more people are deciding to travel by plane. There will be room for growth in that market in the next 10 to 20 years.

Isn't there enough airport capacity available in Europe's LCC airports? Especially in Eastern Europe the population should be in favor of enlarging and modernizing the airports.

The Western European medium sized airports like Beauvais, Dortmund, Luton, Barcelona, Porto, Bologna, Treviso should have some capacity to offer. FRA builds a new low cost terminal to offer opportunities.

holczakker wrote:

Not only the airport capacity but airspace capacity as well. The summer of 2019 was living (flying) hell.

The Single European Sky seems to finally come

Ryanair has around 470 aircraft today. In 2019 (FY2020) they had 150 million passengers and in 2025 they want 200 million. By the rule of three 470/150*200 that means around 630 Ryanair aircraft in 2025.



https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/useful-in ... r/about-us

Which airports served by Wizz or Ryanair were going towards their capacity limits in 2019 with only little chance for an increase of capacity?

Gatwick, Orly, Amsterdam?

Luton, Madrid, Tuzla, Eindhoven, Krakow, Chisinau, Keflavik, Lisbon, Barcelona, Rome-FCO, Budapest just to name a few.

Hm and for all these airports it's unlikely that they expand the capacity?

I mean not only in the peak times of the day. LCCs can use a less demanded departure and arrival time.

Tuzla increased to 700.000 in May 2019. https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/04/tu ... l.html?m=1

And in March 2021 they expand again
https://www.fena.news/bih/business-and- ... expansion/

Luton wants to increase from 18mio to 32mio with one runway
https://aeronauticsonline.com/london-lu ... expansion/

In 2020 BUD finished a capacity expansion
https://www.internationalairportreview. ... 0-million/

STN just got granted an increase by 8mio to 43mio. FR should be happy
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2021-05 ... ers-a-year

Southwest has 736 aircraft now and they won't have enough for 2022 ^^
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.busine ... 21-6%3famp

Blerg wrote:

Personally I could see them reach 500 planes at some point but only if they keep on expanding to new markets beyond Europe. There are still many markets where they could expand.

I think so, too. Wizz said they want an AOC in Balkan and former Sovjet countries. Which could it be?

Ukraine is set.

Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltics are already in the EU, which has an Open Skies agreement with several countries surrounding the EU.

Kazakhstan has already FlyArystan. The East European Wizz destinations can be reached by 6 hour flights from Almaty or Nur-Sultan. Becomes more likely with the XLR.

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan may not be developed enough.

Serbia has already Air Serbia, but could still be possible.

Wizz has a quite big presence in Georgia's Kutaisi already

Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina – could be.

Montenegro and Kosovo might not have enough inhabitants.

In Yerevan they could go into competition with Air Arabia again ^^ - like in Abu Dhabi
https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news ... in-armenia

Tuzla is still unable to handle two departing flights the same time. That's real life, not a media announcement. Luton was seriously limited with stands, airport slots, night quota, handlers, everything, huge congestions for taxiway construction. Real life, not media announcements. LGW did not approve basically any expansion before covid and was unable to arrange turnarounds under 60 mins. Budapest even decided to re-open Terminal 1 before the virus even though it's classified as a national monument. Eindhoven refused to allocate any further airports slots before covid. Any summer was a real pain and shambles in Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon. Keflavik was working well above it's designed capacity between 2016-19. Many "LCC airports" have a hard night curfew (no night movements are possible at all), which creates significant problems in case of delays - Beauvais, Charleroi, Dortmund, Memmingen, Ciampino etc etc. Those problems won't go away.

The media announcements are about the improvement of the current state in the near future.

What should prevent Tuzla airport to solve their limitations? They were in talks with Ryanair to have flights additionally to the ones of Wizz Air.

The majority of airports served by Wizz and Ryanair begging them for more flights.

The public consultation for the second runway in LGW opens Sep 9.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co ... 331705.amp

The high demand summer holidays are only around 2 months per year. The other 10 months are mostly low season.

airlinenavigato wrote:

What should prevent Tuzla airport to solve their limitations? They were in talks with Ryanair to have flights additionally to the ones of Wizz Air.

That they are piss poor and even in 2021 (after the mega 3 million EUR terminal expansion started years after the schedule and lasted a year more than planned) they have two aircraft stands, three check.-in desks and two boarding gates? They needed a couple of years to persuade a local resident to allow a runway light on his property to get their ILS certified even to CAT I. You are talking about plans and dreams. Actual aviation happens in reality. Public consultation and google mean exactly nothing when you'll want to land in Gatwick next year. What time the public consultation started about the third runway of Heathrow? And when will you be able to use it?

Is BUD really as limited as EIN or LTN in terms of room for growth? I never had that impression.

As for Tuzla, I think part of their growth came from BNX not having any traffic. Will be interesting to see how both airports perform now when flights are being added from both cities.

New MK routes

What would you rather go for right now: a holiday or a family visit? With WIZZ's new routes from North Macedonia, you can do both! Book flights from Skopje to Billund, Bologna or Turin, or travel directly from Ohrid to Friedrichshafen!

Maybe FDH and BLQ in addition to LIS will be the 3 new routes for BEG.

Finishing an airport project years after schedule isn't only an East European issue ^^
Don't they get money from the EU during the EU association process?

It's better start the LGW project of the second runway now than later. If the main London airports are full, Southend may be back for growth

Didn't Kutaisi have only 3 gates short time ago? Wizz Air handled plenty of flights through those. Wizz and Ryanair have only around 30min turnaround time, they don't block gates for a long time.

Expanding an airport before its limit is reached could be a waste a tax payer money in the end.

airlinenavigato wrote:

What should prevent Tuzla airport to solve their limitations? They were in talks with Ryanair to have flights additionally to the ones of Wizz Air.

Quick search found more info about Ryanair in Tuzla:
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/07/tuzla-government-blocks-ryanair-flights.html
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/07/ryanair-blocked-at-tuzla-airport-over.html

According to links Ryanair was talking to Tuzla airport. Wizz Air CEO then visited Tuzla and in the following days airport's General Manager was sacked. Ryanair discontinued Tuzla ticket sales. Could this be true?

fly2moon wrote:

Quick search found more info about Ryanair in Tuzla:
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/07/tuzla-government-blocks-ryanair-flights.html
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/07/ryanair-blocked-at-tuzla-airport-over.html

According to links Ryanair was talking to Tuzla airport. Wizz Air CEO then visited Tuzla and in the following days airport's General Manager was sacked. Ryanair discontinued Tuzla ticket sales. Could this be true?

If something happens shortly after something else, both does not need to be connected with each other. But it could ^^

—

As far as I see it, Wizz has now the most ever destinations to Dubai!

Connecting now 6 airports:
Katowice, Budapest, Cluj, Sofia, Bucharest and Catania!

That should be all destinations that are served to the UAE by W6 instead of 5W, except Bari.

To Dubai DXB they are bookable until January 15. The temperatures in December and January in the UAE are very pleasant.

Wizz flies BUD<>DXB in October up to 5 times weekly. From November on only 2 times weekly. I wonder. For Bucharest it's similar.

Anyone know how Wizz Air's AUH base is performing in terms of on time performance? Their AUH-BEG flight seems to be always delayed.

To the UAE in the upcoming week it looks like there are only 13 flights scheduled, to 9 destinations, 7 to Abu Dhabi.

That's the thing of being a point-to-point airline. They are totally depended of the entry regulations of the country the base is in.

With just 7 destinations served currently, it's easy to find the on-time performace manually on flightradar and others

it's Santorini, Athens, Chisinau, Kyiv, Alexandria, Belgrade and Baku.

https://www.kiwi.com/ee/search/results/ ... ber=0~true

On some days LTN->TLV dropped to £39!

Still including the £82 APD

https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s ... Q&curr=GBP

For using the Wizz A321neo in DTM, the airport needs to move a displayed threshold on the runway.

This are the FAQs about the process. It also answers the question, if the A321XLR can use DTM afterwards:

https://www-dortmund--airport-de.transl ... ax,nv,elem

Italy is now the biggest market for Wizz, surpassing Romania. I find that quite impressive. Having been mostly an airline that flies between Eastern and Western Europe. In Italy it's also domestic, city to city and leisure routes now. With 6 bases. There are other Italian airports well frequented by Wizz which could become a base in the future.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/simpleflyi ... untry/amp/

How does Wizz Air compare to easyJet and Ryanair in Italy? Their growth is indeed impressive and it seems like Italians responded well to them unlike the Norwegians.

Can we expect an expansion in Spain similar to Italy in a short-medium term?

nascar1 wrote:

Can we expect an expansion in Spain similar to Italy in a short-medium term?

I think Spain might be harder for them to break into since Iberia is nowhere close to what Alitalia is in Italy. Furthermore, IB has Vueling which seems to be doing ok these days. On top of that both Ryanair and easyJet seem to be doing really well there.

Blerg wrote:

How does Wizz Air compare to easyJet and Ryanair in Italy? Their growth is indeed impressive and it seems like Italians responded well to them unlike the Norwegians.

All three LCCs are big in Italy, where there's a large demand for cheap flights. Italians are price-consious, if they can save a few Euros by flying another airline they will. That's exactly the kind of market in which Wizzair feels at home.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

How does Wizz Air compare to easyJet and Ryanair in Italy? Their growth is indeed impressive and it seems like Italians responded well to them unlike the Norwegians.

All three LCCs are big in Italy, where there's a large demand for cheap flights. Italians are price-consious, if they can save a few Euros by flying another airline they will. That's exactly the kind of market in which Wizzair feels at home.

Of course but my main point is that in Italy there was a vacuum they made the most of: a weak legacy carrier. That's not the case with Spain. Iberia has adjusted its costs and is a lean business today, something Alitalia will never be, no matter how many times they shut it down and rebrand it.

nascar1 wrote:

Can we expect an expansion in Spain similar to Italy in a short-medium term?

Maybe. In Italy they grew because of Alitalia was shrinking, because Ryanair couldn't grow due no MAX deliveries and because Ryanair didnt want to swap much capacity from other markets into Italy during the plague. Also to a smaller extent due to the bankruptcy of Earnest.

Wizz might rather grow in a new European market outside of East Europe when opportunities opens up unexpectedly. Like Vienna. In a short time the airport became very popular for ULCCs. Or Zagreb for Ryanair.

—

Due to a promotion, on certain days London -> Tel Aviv is now £30

For the basic fare. The next higher fare Wizz Go equals the APD ^^

Whenever Air Europa disappears, there might be an opportunity for Wizz Air to open a base in MAD. Also Norwegian closed their MAD base in winter 2019.

Those are short/medium haul destinations from Air Europa in MAD (excluding flights where high-speed train is or is going to be competitive soon)

Amsterdam, Athens, Brussels, Casablanca, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Lisbon, London–Gatwick, Málaga, Marrakesh, Milan–Malpensa, Munich, Palma de Mallorca, Paris–Orly, Porto, Rome–Fiumicino, Tel Aviv, Tenerife–North, Tunis, Venice, Zürich

I could see W6 entering MAD-Canarias (infinite demand) + adding some basic Euro destinations to some of their existing bases (Italy, London) + something else (Morocco, some new Eastern Europe)

Could W6 also open up a base in BCN? I know it's a Vueling fortress, easy has a base also, although they are very conservative in their moves, and Ryanair is there with quite a significant presence..But BCN still has ample space and demand for a hot tourist spot like BCN is coming back..Wizz is already flying to BCN from a large number of eastern european and balkan cities, more recently opened up BEG/TIA-BCN and previously SKP. But it could go further and connect Greece,Cyprus,the Baltics,Armenia,Georgia, ex-Soviet/-stan states, even do TLV and AUH