Wizz Air

[TheLocalYokel]

Last flight to kosice departs tonight.

It's a shame that Kosice bit the dust. It always seemed a strange choice, although loads seemed fine in summer. In midwinter they struggled a bit at times having regard to the airline's usual load factors.

Can't see Wizz doing much more at BRS for the time being, not until the effects of Brexit become clearer anyway.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Looks like WAW and SOF have been removed from sale as of beginning of November. They were on sale through winter and next summer.
KTW still remains on sale right the way through.

 

[Marko1]

They were available last night. Strange. Perhaps Ryanair will take up the Sofia route and already serves the Warsaw region. I doubt we will see wizz much longer. Much promise less commitment

 

[TheLocalYokel]

A post in the BHX thread says that 'Nothing is bookable to Sofia past Nov 4th from any UK airport except Luton (BRS, DSA and BHX)'.

Wiki, admittedly not always the most reliable of sources, is showing the BRS, BHX and DSA routes to Sofia ending on 4/5November with new Wizz routes from Sofia to Malaga, Nice and Lisbon beginning next March.

Perhaps we are now seeing the Brexit effect with an overseas airline uncertain about the UK's economic future.

 

[Jerry]

It could be but they may want to focus on more sunnier destinations for Bulgarians!
Also I'd have thought anyway that their would be bigger Bulgarian populations in the Med than the UK especially at holiday destinations like Nice, Malaga and Lisbon. Dropping Warsaw is a surprise.

 

[Jerry]

It doesn't seem that BRS is having a good time with non based airlines. First WOW and now Wizz reducing.

 

[IanFarquharson]

It maybe just a timetable update as BHX-SOF is no longer bookable from Nov 17 !

 

[Marko1]

Confirmed on twitter that they are changing the schedules

 

[Marko1]

See below

 

[Marko1]

Reading more appears they seem to be withdrawing a lot of uk flights from November although one answer was that we "be pleasantly surprised " whatever that means

 

[Marko1]

They also seem to be dropping routes elsewhere in Europe including Paris beauvais to Warsaw

 

[Jerry]

Extraordinary circumstance? Wonder what that means?

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Strange that they had put SOF on sale on the A321 now dropping it!

 

[Jerry]

Maybe that's the problem. The A321 could be too big for many of the routes.

 

[Marko1]

It doesn't seem that BRS is having a good time with non based airlines. First WOW and now Wizz reducing.

I wonder why brs can't seem to keep these new operators - is it advertising or is it just circumstance e.g brexit etc

 

[Jerry]

I wonder why brs can't seem to keep these new operators - is it advertising or is it just circumstance e.g brexit etc

It is strange. The dropping of WAW and the cuts at other airports could suggest a strategy change. Maybe shift capacity to Germany because of Air Berlin's predicament.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I wonder why brs can't seem to keep these new operators - is it advertising or is it just circumstance e.g brexit etc

It isn't the loads - they are consistently very high for the most part. We don't know the yields of course or whether this is a strategy change possibly with an eye on Brixit or a combination of factors.

In August Wizz carried 2687 passengers on its 2 x weekly Warsaw Chopin service, average load 167.9, load factor 93.3% (Ryanair with its 4 x weekly Warsaw Modlin service carried 6715 passengers, average load 186.5, load factor 98.7%)

Wizz carried 4723 passengers on its 3 x weekly Sofia service, average load 168.7, load factor 93.7%. Sofia was increased this summer to 3 x weekly from the 2 x weekly of summer 2016.

The other Wizz route Katowice (3 x weekly) carried 4864 passengers, average load 173.7, load factor 96.5%.

I posted July's figures in the CAA stats forum last month and they are broadly similar to August except Sofia which at 86.6% was the lowest load factor on BRS's 13 scheduled routes to the former Eastern Bloc countries. Everything else was in the 90s%, the overwhelming majority being between 95% and 98.9%.

Wizz has been operating the A320 on its BRS routes this year, as it has since it began operating there.

Yet again this shows that very high loads do not guarantee a route's survival. We've the same thing with Ryanair at BRS in the past.

 

[Marko1]

The timings on the Katowice route next summer are very late 22:30 . Can't see that lasting long either

 

[Jerry]

That is late and has a 2 am arrival in Poland! I can't see people opting for that.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The timings on the Katowice route next summer are very late 22:30 . Can't see that lasting long either

Not good. Wizz picked up Katowice after Ryanair dumped it, despite having consistent load factors in the 90% bracket, well into it most months. Bratislava was also axed by Ryanair at the same time and had similar loadings to Katowice.

I've just looked at the stats for the Ryanair Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian and Hungarian routes from BRS for August. They are all in the 96%-99% bracket as they are most months - in fact I'd say every month - but I would never be surprised to see one or more axed.

Yet Knock comes back every summer with lower loads than any other FR route out of BRS, albeit it has improved in recent summers with 93% load factor for August but May was only 73%. So it does show again that lower loads might not be disastrous but higher ones can be.