Wizz Air reduces capacity by 74% on main EX-YU markets


Wizz Air has warned of a tough winter ahead and expects for demand to begin recovering next spring. It comes as the low cost carrier cancelled over fifty routes across seven markets in the former Yugoslavia and decreased seat capacity by an average of 74%. CEO Jozsef Varadi said there are no plans to ground the fleet despite new lockdowns across Europe. While the next four to five months would be challenging, Mr Varadi said he saw light at the end of the tunnel from spring when the second wave of the virus eases. Wizz Air has so far withstood the pandemic better than some larger airlines. It has continued to add new routes in a number of markets and remains buoyed by its strong cash position and flexible business model. 

This winter season, Wizz Air has put 71.124 one-way seats on sale from Skopje, down 77% on the 2019/2020 winter. This is followed by Belgrade with 45.954 seats, down 66.9% and Tuzla with 29.886 seats on offer this winter, representing a decrease of 72.3%. These figures are highly likely to change as the airline continues to modify its schedule and route network each week due to a slump in demand and evolving travel restrictions across the continent. Despite plans to introduce new destinations from Pristina next month, the carrier’s overall capacity from the city has declined due to reduced frequencies on its existing services. It currently has 24.752 seats on offer from Kosovo, down 61.6%.

Wizz Air W20/21 one way seat capacity

AirportOne-way capacityChange (%)
Skopje71.124 77.0
Belgrade45.954 66.9
Tuzla29.886 72.3
Pristina24.752▼ 61.6
Niš12.822 69.7
Ohrid8.280 85.2
Podgorica5.760 79.1

Wizz Air will see its market share based on frequency slump at its base in Skopje from 53.1% to 32% this winter season, which runs until March 28, 2021. In Belgrade it will be reduced to 3.9% compared to 7.1% last winter, while in Tuzla it remains the sole operating carrier. In Pristina, the share will decline from 13% to 7%, while in Podgorica it will decline 4.4 points from 7% to 2.6%. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that the industry as a whole will not recover to [2019 levels] any time soon”, Mr Varadi said. He added, “We expect conditions over winter to be particularly challenging with ongoing travel restrictions due to the pandemic as well as the seasonal drop in demand for travel. Notwithstanding the challenges that lie ahead of us during the remainder of this fiscal year, we have laid the foundation for a swift recovery. In addition to expanding into new markets, we intend to retain all our current staff base and thereby generate a head start for when demand returns”.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:01

    That's a big decline, but I doubt ex-Yu carriers are doing any better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:14

      Without doubt. Ex-Yu airlines are probably down even more.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:52

      What makes you say that? As if ex-YU airlines have to be worse by default.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:57

      Because W6 has actually kept a lot of routes.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous12:02

      ...with one weekly frequency.

      There, I fixed it for you.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:02

    I was always under the impression that TZL was the bigger base than BEG.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:27

      TZL has a load of summer only routes.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:03

    Pristina almost the same amount of seats as TZL!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:04

      I think it has a good chance of becoming a Wizz base sooner or later.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:17

      Definitely. PRN is on the way of having at least one plane.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:18

      It would do wonders for PRN which still relies on these family tour operators to sell tickets. Even Eurowings went to bed with them.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:05

    Vienna took the biggest hit, they have only three routes left, Dortmund, Athens and Palma de Mallorca.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:17

      How many routes did they have before? I read somewhere that Vienna is their least profitable base, which is kind of surprising.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:22

      Don't know how many routes they had but their base had something like 2 A320s and 3 A321s. Lots of capacity, on two days a week they will not have a single flight from Vienna!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:24

      These were/are their VIE destinations

      Alicante, Athens, Barcelona, Bari, Billund, Bremen, Bucharest, Burgas, Catania, Charleroi, Chișinău, Cluj-Napoca, Cologne/Bonn, Constanța, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Faro, Kharkiv, Kyiv–Zhuliany, Kutaisi, Larnaca, Lisbon, London–Luton, Madrid, Málaga, Milan–Malpensa, Naples, Nice, Niš, Ohrid, Oslo, Palma de Mallorca, Podgorica, Porto, Pristina, Reykjavík–Keflavík, Rome–Fiumicino, Stockholm–Skavsta, Suceava, Tallinn, Tel Aviv, Tenerife–South, Thessaloniki, Tirana, Valencia, Varna, Warsaw–Chopin, Yerevan, Zaporizhzhia
      Seasonal: Alghero, Castellón, Corfu, Gdańsk, Heraklion, Malta, Menorca, Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini, Tuzla, Zakynthos

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:25

      wow :O

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:43

      Jeez that's a disaster if they are only left with 3 routes.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:48

      VIE had 9 or 10 aircraft but the majority is already stored.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous09:54

      With this post we should put an end to bashing of ZAG for not working with Wizz Air and Ryanair. Only shows how fake the market they create is. Look at the disaster in Vienna and ex-YU. These airports adapted to this fake demand and now they have to pay the massive price.

      Delete
    8. Fake demand? And how many "prestige" airlines left or suspended ZAG? You either pretend dumb or don't understand corona crises is the cause of all these reductions. Of all LCC's, in my opinion Wizz is the worst, still there is no excuse for ZAG not allowing them in, neither for your attempt to use current crisis to defend wrong and protective policy ZAG has

      Delete
    9. Anonymous11:18

      Fake demand? LOL!
      Dude, this is VIE one of the most visited cities in the world. Of course routes like DTM, CGN, BCN are all fake :D
      Wizz will just open routes just like that :D

      Delete
    10. Anonymous11:55

      lol a new term is born "fake-demand"

      btw there is nothing more "fake" then the market held by our exyu state airlines (all of them) that arent profitable at all

      Delete
    11. Anonymous13:39

      Waiting for YM, OU, JP and JU fans...

      Delete
    12. Anonymous17:01

      Anon 13.39 wow... seems like you bet didn't work out in the end ;)

      Delete
    13. Anonymous21:56

      They usually dont show up when you write something like i wrote :)

      Delete
    14. Anonymous07:02

      So what was the point of writing it then besides to create unnecessary provocation? What's your end game?

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:06

    Dear Ex-YU Aviation,
    what about INI?
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 12.822 one-way seats on offer for W20/21 at this point. Down 69.7%.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:15

      Dear Ex-Yu,
      Thank you! At hand as always!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:17

      bit optimistic. from next week on they will have only 2 weekly flights Basel and Memmingen (one weekly each)

      Delete
    4. It has been added to the table. The data is based on the published capacity over the past weekend. As noted, the airline continues to modify its schedule on a daily basis.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:06

    I'm more surprised by OHD having more capacity than TGD!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:09

      It's not that surprising. They operate more routes to/from Ohrid.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:07

    Where are these hangars?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      Budapest

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:10

      I believe in Budapest

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:21

      No, Jozsef, the demand will not return in the spring, it's only wishful thinking. You said if will return by May, then by the summer then by the winter. It did not. You said you are happy to have this downturn as you were waiting for it and you act by your playbook to be the winner of it while others go bust. 10+ bases were opened, something like 15 new aircraft were taken from Airbus this year. At this moment 8 of those aircraft are in the air out of a fleet of 135 on a "busy" Monday morning. Varadi called all in with expansion and failed. He just keep pushing his forecast every three months time and again.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:29

      Agree with last anon. Not sure if this expansion strategy in the middle of the biggest downturn in aviation will pay off.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:30

      I think it pays off in generating revenue and cashflow, which is what airlines need at the moment.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:46

      @Anonymous09:21:

      Spot on. Varadi has completely lost the big picture and is heading in the wrong direction. O'Leary outsmarted him by patiently waiting for things to normalise (will they?). Then, FR will be on the move.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous09:55

      Ryanair also reported a profit while Wizz Air keeps on collecting losses and debt. Let's not forget that he said that they have money for another three years and then shortly after he revised that to a year and a half and then he got a loan from the UK. lol

      Delete
    8. Anonymous10:18

      Ryan reported what?

      Delete
    9. Anonymous10:33

      'Of more interest, I think, was the result for the September quarter in isolation. Before exceptional hedging costs, Ryanair actually managed to record a small operating profit of €10.8m and was still profitable after financing costs, delivering €4.9m pre-tax.'

      https://www.gridpoint.consulting/blog/ryanair-posts-a-profit-for-the-september-quarter

      To answer your question Anon 10.18, they managed to report a profit.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous09:14

    The big problem with all of Wizz's biggest markets in ex-Yu is that they are outside of the EU and that people can't enter the EU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:23

      A big problem is that half of the markets they fly to is under lockdown!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:24

      The German style or even French style of lockdown is incomparable with the Balkan lockdowns you had in March/April.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:14

      yes but it means instead of flying half empty now they will fly 1/4 full at the most

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:15

      Germany instroduced 10 days qarantine as of today for all peeple returnig from Risiko-countries ...

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:17

      ^ I assume that's like every single country in the world?

      Delete
    6. Anonymous10:19

      @10.17 pretty much

      Delete
    7. Anonymous10:33

      These lockdowns will hurt many airlines, if not all. I expect more bankruptices.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:16

    PRN and BEG have lost the lest capacity compared to last winter.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous09:21

    " In addition to expanding into new markets, we intend to retain all our current staff base"

    What does this mean? As far as I know they have fired some staff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:22

      It says they intend to, not that they have done it so far. Because they opened a lot of new bases, they don't hire new crew. They just offer them to relocate from existing bases where there is less work. If you don't, the likelihood is you loose your job.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:48

      By retain, he means he'll force the crews to take unpaid leave or if they're lucky, part time with a 75% pay reduction. What a charitable man he is.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:04

      Meanwhile the managers of Wizz are still selling their bonus shares for millions of GBP. See the published data on the site of the London Stock Exchange.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:26

      Are people not allowed to sell their private property, or what was the point you were trying to make?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous12:29

      No, I was trying to make the point that they have millions ín euro to give it to 10 managers while 1000 employees were fired and another 4000 are on unpaid "leave" for the winter to save the asses of the 10.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous13:59

      Hungary doesn't have 9 billion eur to save Wizz like Germany. Wizz doesn't have a government safety net. Cash out while you can.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous14:51

      Those shares were probably given out before Covid19, back when the airline business was booming, right?

      Delete
    8. Anonymous15:45

      @Anonymous 14:51:

      Nope, during the crisis, 28th August 2020 (www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/WIZZ/director-pdmr-shareholding/14669016)

      Delete
    9. Anonymous15:53

      @Anonymous 11:26:

      The main purpose of any company is the ensure the welfare of their employees. If you disagree, you are more than welcome to let your under age child work for a Chinese crap making company for a handful of rice, so that the owners can get even wealthier. Capitalism, go figure.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous16:30

      @Anon 15:45: That's sale of the shares, which should not be an issue. Did Varadi get those shares during the crisis or before? If he got them during the crisis, while the company made a lot of people redundant, that wouldn't be nice. If he got them before and decided to sell them now, I don't see an issue.

      @Anon 15:53: A lot of economists would disagree with you. Obviously the capitalistic approach would be that the main purpose of a company is to make profit.

      I would say the main purpose of a company should be to provide goods or services to their customers.

      Delete
    11. Anonymous19:16

      @Anonymous 15:53:

      Well, that's not what they thought me at Economy 101. If a lot of economists say it's the right thing to do, that doesn't make it right, does it? But it's interesting that you're justifying exploitation of people in order to make the rich even richer. And before you say it's a free market, in most cases it isn't.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous09:26

    As far as I can see, they seem to be planning to restore all routes once things calm down.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous09:28

    Where are they parking the planes that they don't operate? In Budapest or they leave them at the airports they are based at? Anyone know?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:49

      Budapest, Debrecen, at the original bases, everywhere.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous09:28

    "No plans to ground fleet" One flight per a week what does mean? Grounded planes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:32

      They are probably using all their aircraft but at reduced hours.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:35

      Are you sure. For example at BEG are both planes used?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:37

      Both are definitely used. They have a flight to Dortmund at 12.00 and a flight to Stockholm at 12.05.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:10

      cannot imagine Wizz using aircrafts at "reduced hours". could be a plane from other bases

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:51

      Reduces hours?! Only one rotation per day .... At SOF would be 2 or max 3 planes for November.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous12:35

      Three consecutive days (Tuesday to Thursday) every week without a single Wizz flight from Budapest...

      Delete
  14. Anonymous09:29

    Winter is coming.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:30

      It has arrived...

      Delete
  15. Anonymous09:36

    I expect London flights will be cancelled to all ex-Yu airport since British residents and citizens are not allowed to leave the country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:42

      Yep. Skopje is cancelled till 17th December and Ohrid till January.

      They still fly BEG but only once per week until the start of December.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:43

      What about PRN?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:47

      For now they keep flying it twice per week.

      Delete
  16. Anonymous09:54

    Thank you for the warning of a touch winter ahead - given in November. Other airlines with real business acumen realized this months ago and did not expand for nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous09:58

    NMK figures are really red. I have no idea how and when they'll turn green again anytime soon. Demand has drastically fallen down. It'll sure be a harsh winter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nebuloza10:08

      as if others have/will turn/ green and will not have a harsh winter. dosadan si vise.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:07

      If you compare SKP and OHD figures you'll see the trend to be more red. It'll take sometime to recover and especially pass through the harsh winter. Tough time ahead for both airports.

      Delete
    3. Nebuloza11:51

      @11.07 maybe you should compare the figures. SKP had not slipped yet into -80% (but is expected for Nov.) like the majority of ExYu airports despite some heavy trolling by the 2-men brigade.

      "Tough time ahead for both airports. " pathetic! which airport in Europe will not have a harsh winter ...

      Delete
    4. Anonymous12:05

      I really dislike this Nebuloza poster. Every time anyone remotely says something negative he shows up and aggressively attacks them, even when they present rational arguments and facts. Chill out man, this is a place for discussion, not attacks and savagery.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous12:32

      The one way seat capacity in SKP is the highest and basically equals the sum of the rest of the ex-Yu cities. Just to give you an idea about how complicated the issue is. And the other day someone also shared the LF between Germany and NMK, well, the low figures match with the above table. It will take a longer time for SKP to recover the huge number of seat reductions and capacity.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous12:44

      Which is why SKP needs to use this opportunity to make a deal with Ryanair and Eurowings!

      Delete
    7. Anonymous12:52

      EW failed in SKP in 2017 due to poor demand, I don't think they will come back because MUC is not a gasto route:

      https://www.exyuaviation.com/2017/09/eurowings-cancels-new-skopje-service.html#

      I don't think the primary European airports have market in SKP.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous14:04

      @12.05 which rational facts and arguments? lol

      will want to see the faces of mr.notorious and his buddy when they realize that their heavy trolling against SKP as the most-hit airport in ExYu didnt really work out well after seeing the end of year results compared to other ExYu airports...

      Delete
    9. Anonymous14:05

      anon @12.32 HR,SRB and BiH have lower LF to Germany

      Delete
    10. Anonymous17:02

      SRB makes sense since it has the most competition to Germany, three airlines are battling for the market. For example JU beat W6 in STR-FKB area.

      Delete
    11. Anonymous21:58

      JU beat them with subsidies....

      Delete
    12. Anonymous07:07

      Any proof of that? The last time I checked they compete in other markets but JU either lost (MLA) or they manage to live side by side (LCA, MMX/CPH...). What you write is malicious and not constructive at all while prsenting us with absolutely zero arguments.

      How about this argument that people in Stuttgart simply don't want to fly from a shack in the middle of nowhere? They'd rather fly from a centrally located airport and flying on an airline which, when things go south, they know they will be there for them. I despise pathetic comments such as yours.

      Delete
    13. Anonymous09:34

      STR is one of the weekest JU routes

      Delete
  18. Anonymous10:30

    ironically the most affected (paxwise) countries in ExYu are those where Wizz is not flying at all ...

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous13:33

    Hello exyouaviation. Can you check with wizzair are they planning to open Moscow/St Peterbourg-Podgorica service this decembar of January 2021. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous14:49

    Hello, EX-YU.
    what about Sarajevo?
    When will the result of the tendering be published?
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous17:03

    Hilarious how Wizz Air announced their plans to downsize Norway operations. God, they are so useless.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous17:34

    With low costs relying on subsidies from airports and governments, I feel that there will be many routes, not just ex-yu, that will not return. Airports won't be able to provide subsidies, die to the lost revenue they occurred. Governments on the other hand will want to help out the carrier representing their home country. My feeling is it will be a long road ahead for every airline.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous22:00

      Airports were never paying subsidies to the airlines. Local authorities usually do that.

      Delete

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