Low cost carrier Wizz Air has expanded the number of destinations it will temporarily suspend for part or the entire duration of the 2021/2022 winter season, which runs until March 26 of next year, as reduced demand and a surge in coronavirus cases across the continent continues to impact the airline’s operations. The suspensions will affect all cities served by the budget carrier in the former Yugoslavia, with exception to Ljubljana. A total of 27 routes will be either temporarily suspended for part or the entire winter season including those operated out of Skopje, Tuzla, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Ohrid, Podgorica, Pristina, Niš and Banja Luka. Further changes remain possible.
The budget airline will pause operations from Skopje to Bremen, Hanover, Malta and Larnaca for the entire winter season, while services to Turku, Beauvais and Nuremberg will be temporarily suspended between mid-November and mid-December. Frequencies on some routes will also be reduced during this period. On the other hand, Wizz will go ahead with the addition of three new destinations from the Macedonian capital in mid-December, including Turin, Bologna and Billund, as well as the stationing of a fifth jet in the city. From Ohrid, the airline will halt operations to Malmo until mid-December, Milan until late January and London Luton until mid-February. It will go ahead with the introduction of its new service to Friedrichshafen on December 18.
Operations from Wizz Air’s newest base in the region, in Sarajevo, will also be impacted in the coming months. The airline will temporarily suspend flights from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital to Charleroi and Beauvais from mid-November until mid-December, while from Tuzla flights to Friedrichshafen, Baden Baden and Gothenburg will also be affected during this period, while services to Skavsta and Vaxjo have been suspended until the 2022 summer season. Over in Banja Luka, flights to Basel will not operate until mid-December. The airline still plans to significantly expand its offering from Bosnia and Herzegovina starting mid next month by launching flights from Sarajevo to Treviso, Malmo, Hahn, Cologne, Sandefjord and Billund, as well as from Tuzla to Milan and Nuremberg, and from Banja Luka to Hamburg.
The airline’s network from its Belgrade base will also see changes with services to Sandefjord and Hanover suspended until the start of the summer season next March, while flights to Malta will see a temporary one-month suspension until mid-December. The carrier will add new routes to Hahn, Billund, Barcelona and Vaxjo next month, as well as strengthen frequencies on several existing routes. From Niš, services to Malmo will be suspended until the middle of next month.
Despite not being Wizz Air bases, flights to Pristina and Podgorica will also be disrupted. The airline is temporarily suspending operations from Rome and Milan to Pristina from mid-November for one month, while operations from Vienna to the Montenegrin capital will not operate until mid-December. Furthermore, flights from Podgorica to Milan and Budapest have been suspended until next summer.
Crazy to think that AUH has the most seats on offer from BEG in November. Only Dortmund is ahead.
ReplyDeleteAUH flights are performing really well.
DeletePeak season is beginning now.
DeleteI'm starting to doubt more and more those new routes will launch in December
ReplyDeleteI think BEG-BCN and BEG-HHN are safe, fares not that low.
DeleteMe too. I think a lot of the current flight schedule is just wishful thinking.
DeleteWell they need to grow fast so that Varadi can get his £100 million bonus.
DeleteSituation will stay this way until EU starts permanently opens its borders.
DeleteI read somewhere that there is an idea to allow vaccinated passengers into the EU starting from 01.01.2022. That would be the best solution in my opinion.
DeleteIt's becoming obvious that covid related restrictions are not really an adequate solution. We need to learn how to live with the infection.
Let's hope so and let's hope they accept all vaccines otherwise it won't work. Australia for example has now accepted all developed vaccines except Sputnik and they said they will approve that one too in a few weeks.
DeleteI think it's the same with Canada though they don't accept Sinopharm. The EU already gave the green light for Sinopharm and seems like EMA will do the same soon.
DeleteI think the EU needs to follow US' example where they accepted all vaccines approved by the FDA as well as WHO (including those for emergency use like Sputinik).
So is Australia open for foreign visitors now?
DeleteNo, it is open for Australian citizens and residents, as well as their families (two states in which Sydney and Melbourne are located). They wanted to open for everyone from today but the government said that first Australians who have been stranded for 600 days can return home. But Australians can finally travel now and 2 week quarantine has been abolished. This applies only for vaccinated people.
DeleteGood so vaccinated diaspora can finally travel home. I expect demand to ex-YU to explode now.
DeleteDemand won’t explode just yet. The flights coming back to Australia are currently booked out for a couple of months for the prices that diaspora likes to pay. Unless they are ready pay $2500+ they are going to wait for Euro summer next year. Or possibly as early as Easter.
DeleteWinter is coming!
ReplyDeleteWait really? I didn't know that!
DeleteWinter season has already begun
DeleteHe's referring to the quote from The Game of Thrones. Duh.
DeleteThey seem to be introducing and suspending routes near constantly.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, if it only was that simple. This has been going on for a long time now, yet they never learned. Adding new flights and frequencies like there's no tomorrow and screwing with people's plans and money. They just don't care.
Deletequite predictable, yesterday they announce new routes, tomorrow they already suspend them :D its just like recruitment in bamboo airways - we need pilots, but actually not, but please apply :D
DeleteSame old same old from Wizz
ReplyDeleteWell, it's normal. Why should they generate losses on routes if there is not enough demand? They are not responsible for Covid.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the point of them adding extra planes to SKP and BEG when with these suspensions they can just use existing fleet to cover the new routes?
ReplyDeleteWell in Belgrade they announced several new routes from December so that's where the extra plane is needed. They are also adding an A320 which should be easier to fill.
DeleteSeems like Skopje has the most suspensions.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense since they have the biggest network from Skopje too.
DeleteShould be a wake up call not to rely on a single airline for 80% of your traffic.
DeleteWe need another serious LCC in SKP.
DeleteWell easyJet starts flying to SKP today :)
DeleteRemember what happened when Tuzla decided to wake up. Wizz Air threatened they would leave and requested for them to block Ryanair.
DeleteSame happened in Skopje some 7 years ago.
DeleteThey did this in BEG when JU rebranded and there was issues with Wizz having unfair subsidies in BEG that resulted in the former BEG CEO being arrested. An aircraft was pulled out of BEG and sent to RIX, only for them to bring it back and now increase capacity.
DeleteSometimes just giving in is not a solution either. Short term might not be good, but if it's profitable they will want to stay and fight for their place. SKP after all isn't some random secondary airport.
When the government changed in Macedonia a few years ago and they had to repeat the tender for subsidies 3 times, Wizz was getting angry and they pulled 3 routes over the winter and turned them seasonal for just that single year. They were sending a warning to the government. Crazy what bullies they are.
DeleteWell it's better than last winter when they suspended over 50 routes.
ReplyDeleteThere is still time... Just 2 week ago they had only 7 routes cancelled. Now its 27.
DeleteLet's hope they actually launch those new routes and not cancel them.
ReplyDeleteThey will probably delay a few.
DeleteThose new Swedish routes are looking unlikely because of entry restrictions.
ReplyDeleteItaly too
DeleteTaking in consideration all circumstances it could have been worse.
ReplyDeleteI think it will get worse. These suspensions will end in December because of Christmas and probably all be reintroduced in the middle of January.
DeleteIt all really depends on how the travel restrictions pan out over the rest winter.
DeleteIn the end even PRN succumbed to the cancellations.
ReplyDeleteThey held up quite well up until now
DeleteIt will be another difficult winter for airlines. That's for sure.
ReplyDeleteNo surprise
DeleteUnfortunate :(
ReplyDeleteHopefully Sarajevo - London Luton will start now
ReplyDeleteHow did you come to that conclusion?
DeleteLondon-Tuzla didn't work out. Maybe they would have more luck with Sarajevo.
DeleteLCCs have to have a very high LF to make a profit on a flight. Simple as that.
ReplyDeleteWhile state-owned airlines in exyu don't have to make profit at all.
DeleteYou mean like Adria didn't have to which is why the Slovenian government perpetually pumped cash into them and didn't look for a private investor to offload them? Hmm...
DeleteThere is big pressure on ex-YU legacies to make a profit. That is why some like JU had to adapt their business model and to reduce costs. As long as losses are at a manageable level it should be fine.
I also don't think they will resume Skopje - Larnaca and Skopje - Malta in December as scheduled. They keep pushing the resumption dates further and further and it has been that way for months now.
ReplyDeleteIt probably won't start until March 2022.
DeleteI think this is coming due to lack of crew members. They have issues since months and that's why they are hiring all over south-eastern europe.
ReplyDeleteI was just about to ask that. Wondering why they are hiring so much if they a cutting routes/frequencies.
DeleteThe recruitment drive is for Varadi to deliver growth because the owners have said he will get 100 million euro bonus if he achieves a certain growth target. And that involves launching many many new routes.
DeleteWhen he gets those 100 million he will leave the company guaranteed. A few years later they will probably go bust for opening a whole lot of unsustainable routes.
DeleteHope all the routes are restored as planned.
ReplyDeleteQuite surprised about TZL and Skavsta. This route performed well.
ReplyDeleteMany of their routes from Tuzla are being impacted by their growth in Sarajevo and Banja Luka.
DeleteNo surprise. They launched Skavsta from Sarajevo. This is the result.
DeleteStarting Stockholm from other cities in Bosnia definitely had an impact. They started from Banja Luka too.
DeleteThey seem to have given up on Tuzla.
DeleteHow have they given up when they are launching two new routes from TZL next month?
DeleteThese are token routes announced in return for blocking Ryanair.
DeleteBanja Luka Has now two airlines to fly to Stockholm, Ryanair to Arlanda and Wizzair to Skavsta.
DeleteAre other bases affected or just the one in ex-Yu?
ReplyDeleteOthers too.
Delete"The suspensions will affect all cities served by the budget carrier in the former Yugoslavia, with exception to Ljubljana. "
ReplyDeleteThis is a first for Ljubljana! :D
They have just one route to LJU.
Deleteshortly they will have 2
DeleteWhich is a return to what they had a few years ago. But their proposal to launch new routes from LJU was rejected by the Slovenian government unfortunately.
DeleteOfcourse it was rejected when the minister is mr. Počivalšek. He is the one who doesn't give a sh*t about aviation in Slovenia and keeps on destroying everything about it.
DeleteI don't think this is a big loss. These cancellations will be made up for with the launch of new routes in December.
ReplyDeleteThey have scheduled many routes in the past year only to cancel or delay them.
DeleteThey need better internal planning.
ReplyDeleteSad :(
ReplyDeleteIt's really unfortunate for ex-Yu. Quite a lot of routes.
DeleteDoes this apply only for Europe destinations from these ex YU countries?
DeleteI'm sure most of these routes won't be back before summer 2022
ReplyDeletethey will all be back within a few weeks.
DeleteNot if there are 15-20 pax per flight.
DeleteI'm surprised their flights to Germany are mostly unaffected even though they have placed most of ex-Yu on red list.
ReplyDeleteThese flights are used by gastos. Those restrictions do not apply to them.
DeleteTrue, forgot about that
DeleteThey will likely offer a reduced network for a while.
ReplyDeleteRyanair should use this opportunity to expand more in the region.
ReplyDeleteWizz is suspending flights because of low demand. So I don't see how suddenly Ryanair could generate more demand.
DeleteActually FR is expanding. They started flights from Stockholm to Nis and Banja Luka over the weekend, as well as from Vienna to Banja Luka. They will launch 9 new routes to Zagreb in December too.
DeleteThey just didn't expect so many irrational, knee-jerk decisions to be made by governments around the EU.
ReplyDeleteSure. They also didn't expect that they will need pilots to fly this much aircraft. It's always good to blame it on the virus. Instead of focusing what they should do now to survive they blah-blah about the bright future of having 500 aircraft.
DeleteIt's really unfortunate for SKP. Quite a lot of routes.
ReplyDeleteI really wouldn't worry about. They will get new routes next month and these will eb resumed as soon as the covid situation improves.
DeleteWell I guess now we can see which routes depend mostly purely on gasto traffic, since these are all being kept.
ReplyDeleteThey will resume sooner or later.
ReplyDeleteSo no flights from BEG to Malta right? Until Wizz resumes it. JU gave up on this route since Covid.
ReplyDeleteCorrect
DeletePity, just as aviation and airports were slowly starting to recover.
ReplyDeleteSo this is applicable for Europe destinations only, right?
ReplyDelete