Low cost carrier Wizz Air, which boasts bases across the former Yugoslavia, expects for travel restrictions and entry bans introduced by governments without much prior warning to have an impact on its business within the next five months. The carrier has been forced to temporarily suspend over a dozen routes from Skopje, Belgrade, Tuzla, Ohrid, Pristina and Podgorica due to travel restrictions imposed onto nationals from these markets by other European states. “An upcoming period within the range of five months will feature a lot of uncertainty and the industry will have to learn how to be flexible in adapting to new route networks and adjusting capacity”, Wizz Air’s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, said.
Mr Varadi noted his airline has already embarked on a strategy to mitigate the effects of the ongoing pandemic. He cited the expansion of its Airbus A321 fleet in Belgrade, the establishment of its first Russian base in St Petersburg along with the restart of its Kiev base, the launch of fourteen new routes between Ukraine and Italy, the resumption of flights from markets such as Hungary and Macedonia, as well as its venture into the Middle East. In the coming period, Wizz Air plans to launch nine new routes from Belgrade, introduce its first year-round service to Croatia and commence new flights to Montenegro. “We have been trimming capacity in our existing markets, but at the same time we have also created a new network of routes and operating bases, so we are opening six or seven new bases just as we speak”, Mr Varadi said. The airline is now flying at 77% of its 2019 levels. The carrier noted that even with the coronavirus, it expected to grow its capacity by roughly 9% this year.
Commenting on Wizz Air’s strategy, which has vastly differed from its competitors during the ongoing crisis, Mr Varadi noted, “The very worst situation for us is when we don’t operate. The moment we operate, we only operate on a cash contribution basis. You have to run your businesses for the long run and liquidity and cash are critical components of your business model. We all know that short haul flying is a commodity business and in a commodity business the lowest cost prevails, and now we’re the lowest cost producer so I think our competing position has just gotten better”. He added, “Ten years ago when the last economic crisis hit the world, we were simply not strong enough and not big enough to take advantage of the situation. This time around I think we have the scale. We have the financial capacity to actually benefit from this and be one of the winners in this situation”.
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That's impressive
"We have the financial capacity to actually benefit from this and be one of the winners in this situation”.
It will be impossible to keep borders shut for the foreseeable future, said WHO emergencies programme head Mike Ryan.
“Economies have to open up, people have to work, trade has to resume,” he said. "...Continuing to keep international borders sealed is not necessarily a sustainable strategy for the world's economy, for the world's poor, or for anybody else."
I read somewhere that they are at around 40%.
In WHO we trust
Companies have seen they can do business just as effective online without spending a crazy amount of money on hotels, flights, etc. just for short meetings.
The likelihood is that the pandemic will continue at least until next January/February when the vaccine may become available. Until then the aviation industry will suffer a lot in the region.
The odds are that the winter schedule will be even more minus that the summer. The only chance for people from Serbia, NM, Montenegro, Kosovo, B&H, Alb to travel to EU is if the EU will allow passengers from WB to travel if they have a negative COVID-19 test.
Slap in the face for Wizz CEO and his unfounded predictions.
It is more about the free movement of people spreading the disease. Some countries have reduced the number to close to 0 (at the expense of tourism, hospitality, etc) others are cheating with the numbers or doing nothing. I fully understand if the former want to shut down the borders
There are so many businesses where there is no way you can replace a face2face meeting with an online meeting: sales people, technicians, attending conferences,etc. and furthermore I've been working in an intl. environment for most of my career now and these "online meetings" have been in the talks for years, in the past to save costs or "because of co2 emissions" and after a while it always got back to having the same meetings in person.
So, while some meetings (and employees for that matter) may be made redundant, the majority will at some point in (near) future just return to meeting in person, and for that
in most instances you will need to take a flight.
LCCs have one of the lowest possible CO2 emissions per pax km.
https://www.aerotime.aero/rytis.beresnevicius/25514-wizz-air-labor-safety-criticism
Wizz is not yet the size of Ryan but it is the worst offender in terms of growth of CO2 emissions in this part of Europe.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/01/ryanair-new-coal-airline-enters-eu-top-10-emitters-list
Today, it's connecting more and more cities together showing the importance of O&D traffic in the region.
SKP is probably the stellar example when it comes to W6 success as well as TZL of course. God bless Wizzair!
Certain information are already circulating that it will affect salaries in public sector as the first measure.
Who knows what kind of more difficult consequences it will cause to countries like Croatia.
Above quote is from BBC. Wizz should also stay away from false greenwashing.
They also have controlling shares in Frontier Airlines (US), JetSmart (Chile) and Volaris (Mexico).
Which other airline in Europe has 450+ aircraft?
You're comparing apples to oranges, unfortunately. You have to apply scale to the emissions. Sure, Wizz Air, Ryanair, Easyjet pollute a lot - but they've got large fleets. But a 180-seat aircraft with 90% LF is more efficient fuel and emissions-wise than a 90-seat aircraft with 70% LF (let's say your typical regional for hub flying).
Governments are expected to keep national airlines while transforming them into more sustainable mode of operations. Lowcosters are not expected to be protected. They are disposable assets.
I gave you an explanation for this and you just ignore it! Wizz Air was never flying on a short regional routes with dashes as OS did! Thats why Wizz is not replacing anything with rail because they never operated these kinds of short routes! Do you know a Wizzs route which is under 350 km and can be replaced with rail? Do you know any W7s route which originates on the Balkans and can be replaced with high speed railways like in Austria or Netherlands?
"No other airline was on the top 10 polluters list."
So there is no LH with 700 aircraft on that list? There is no AF/KL with 500 aircraft on that list? There is no Aeroflot group with 400 aircraft on that list? There is no TK with 400 aircraft on that list? There is no IAG with 600 aircraft on that list? Why you dont want to cancel these airlines? You said they are not on the list. Who is then on that list? Can you show us "your" list than?
"Trolls don't use facts. Everything posted above is a fact."
You are maybe using some facts, but in reality you are ignoring most of them.
"Governments are expected to keep national airlines while transforming them into more sustainable mode of operations."
And Wizz and Ryan are not doing that? They are not buying new aircraft? They are not going to make their fleet more efficiant? And what are you saying about 737s Classics in JUs and ROs fleets? Are these airlines more fuel efficiant with these stone age aircraft than Wizz with brand new A321neos?
Frontier Airlines
JetSMART
Wizz Air
Volaris
Volaris Costa Rica (through its minority stake in parent carrier, Volaris)
Indigo Partners LLC joined a consortium of Canadian investors to rebrand Enerjet as a ULCC in 2019.
Why repeat questions about A321NEO being fuel efficient? That was debunked in earlier posts when Wizz was a news item. Wizz volume, growth and revenue model based on unneeded travel places it into top airline polluters by growth of CO2 in this region. If you are new, go back and read up before making comments.
Similar claims in advertisments by Ryanair have been banned: "Ryanair adverts banned for making 'misleading' CO2 emissions claims" and "Both the company's radio and TV adverts reference "low CO2 emissions" while the text advert claimed "Ryanair has the lowest carbon emissions of any major airline":
https://news.sky.com/story/ryanair-adverts-banned-for-making-misleading-co2-emissions-claims-11926471
LCC model is unable to transform itself. Partnership with Rail, other modes of sustainable transport, hub model, essential travel market are incompatible with Wizz and others. Add upcoming government regulations, taxes on fuels, value added taxes on international tickets, funding to keep and transform flag carriers, changes in airport policies will all have devastating effect on LCCs.
This pandemic is the extinction event that will take out LCC dinosaur model. Wizz is a dead man walking.
If LCC is a dead model, why are these airlines growing then?
Wizz has one of the largest CO2 emisions growth in the region, but also it is carrying far larger number of passangers. Or for enviroment are beter JUs 737s and OUs A320s?
Do you know that diaspora used to get home by car and now they are doing it with Wizz, so in reality you are not going to make anything useful for invoriment with cancel it. A320 to Memingen will going be replaced by 4 old buses and I dont see anything good for enviroment.
If we should cancel Wizz, we should than also cancel every other airline, but your logic is in that there is no logic. You just want to cancel Wizz without any good reason...
What does "esential travel market" means? Are you one of the guys which are reading OneMileAtATime where guy is flying from Manila to Toronto just for a review while usually there are people bashing Wizz because young people want to discover the world for cheap prices? Are we going to ban tourist flights because they are not esential? And who are you to say Wizz passangers are non esential? Visiting your family or going to work in Germany is not esential to you?
Did you know that people who are traveling to their final destinatios via hub are using more flights than these who are traveling with direct flight? And more flights means more CO2 emisions? Has a sence to me actually.
BTW the 50% load factor is not the actual number of passengers on board but the number of tickets sold. The actual number of pax boarded is 10-20% less than that. Even this low figure could only be "reached" on a way that Wizz Air did not cancel flights where governments did not ban flying explicitly (even though the passengers did not show up and there were hardly any passengers on board) to avoid them being entitled to rebook/refund so that they could retain the money.
Replacing air routes with buses sounds hilarious to me. 2 hours of flight is equal to the 20 hours of driving.
As far I understand you there will be no intra european flights because all be replaced by busses and trains.
Regional electric aircraft will not be here for at least more 20 years.
I do not understand what do you mean when you said legacies are "keepers"?