Wizz Air will discontinue its flights between London Luton Airport and Ljubljana as the budget carrier continues to battle with dozens of grounded aircraft due to problems with Pratt & Whitney engines on its new-generation Airbus aircraft. Although Wizz initially planned to suspend services between Luton and Ljubljana until the summer, it will now discontinue the route altogether, with the final flight to take place next Tuesday. Initially, the airline planned to operate three weekly flights between the two cities this summer, then revised its plan down to two weekly, before completely removing the route from its network. All flights were to be operated by the carrier’s 239-seat Airbus A321neo aircraft.
Ljubljana will continue to be linked to two of London’s other airports. This summer, British Airways will operate up to seven weekly flights between London Heathrow and the Slovenian capital, while easyJet will run up to six weekly rotations from London Gatwick. Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, easyJet operated nine weekly flights from Stansted to Ljubljana in addition to its Gatwick flights. Wizz Air’s only service to Ljubljana this summer will be its recently launched subsidised flights from Skopje. The carrier will continue to run operations between the two capitals three times per week.
Wizz Air has been severely affected by the grounding of its aircraft and continues to update its summer network on a daily basis, which will impact most of its operations in the former Yugoslavia, including its two bases in Skopje and Belgrade, more on which will be published in the coming days. Wizz Air is estimating capacity growth will at best be flat this year, as new aircraft deliveries only manage to mitigate the effects of the groundings. According to Wizz, thirteen of its 180-plus Airbus aircraft were grounded as of December 31, 2023, stretching to 33 as of January 24, 2024. groundings are likely to take forty aircraft out of service by the end of the year.
Shame but what I don’t understand is why Easy Jet has not restored Gatwick. They used to have so many flights to Ljubljana before the pandemic.
ReplyDeleteThe way Slovenian government treated easyjet during the pandemic, I’m not surprised. They were the only airline the Slovenian government rejected to give subsidies during the pandemic for flying to LJU even though they applied. Meanwhile, Swiss, which wasn’t flying to LJU at all was given money.
DeleteBecause they applied with British AOC
DeleteUmm Easy Jet does dly Lju-Gatwick?
DeleteI meant Stansted
DeleteEasyJet completely closed its Stansted base. Just a few EasyJet flights are to Stansted from other bases.
DeleteThis would be a perfect environment for EasyJet to step in any increases frequencies, since their only competition at LJU is a legacy carrier
DeleteSo what now? Does Easyjet come in? Does Ryanair? Does TUI? Or will the date be the same as the one with 15 missing routes like Berlin, Stockholm, Vienna, Etc?
ReplyDeleteRyanair won't come any time soon
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2024/01/ryanair-ceo-ljubljana-airport-simply.html
LJU keeps winning!
ReplyDeleteWhat?
DeleteIt’s a shame really, I actually used Wizz quite a few times to get to LON. Not for return flights but at least there or back. Was quite happy with them, and the flights were always pretty full from what I could see.
DeleteThis just means now that the route to LON will be more expensive and more people will probably turn to KLU and TRS, where FR flies to STN.
I flew the route for £11.99 on a nearly empty aircraft. It was great but it was never going to last in the current macro environment
DeleteWizz will have a very poor year.
ReplyDeleteAnd nobody cares about them. They can go bankrupt and nobody would cry.
DeleteSkopje would
DeleteSkopje, Larnaca, Rome, Bucharest and Budapest.
DeleteOnly Skopje has all their eggs in Wizz basket though.
Deleteno it doesn`t, it has 60% of the eggs in one basket
DeleteWizz marketshare in SKP is well over 75%
Deletethe marketshare is 60 percent, check ur stats...
DeleteWhat happen to flights from the north west to Varna Bulgaria
DeleteWizz is collapsing all around.
ReplyDeleteWell when 60 of your planes are grounded, it tends to be a problem
DeleteThat's because they were irresponsible and they overexpanded.
DeleteIn BEG for example Wizz cuts are huge and prices skyrocket high. JU is now cheaper on many routes than W6 or at least equal.
DeleteDo you understand 60 planes are grounded through no fault of Wizz Air?
DeleteIt is their fault because they rushed to base their entire growth on a new and untested model. Who is to blame? Why did they rush to replace old and reliable A320s with A321neo?!
Delete@ anon 09:43
DeleteFlying "green" is cool. But it comes with unexpected costs.
09:43 If they didnt rush to replace them, then you wouldnt find a 10 euro one way ticket with them. Its their business model and thats how it works, newer fleet requries less maintenance and represents lower costs. Not to mention that its not just Wizz Air, Ryanair also has hundreds of MAX aircraft and if something happen to them again then Ryanair will need to do the same. Aegean also replaced most of their ceo with neo, Lufthansa has neo, Turkish Airlines does, so its natural that they replace old with new jets. Wizz Air among other LCC has the opporitunity to expand a lot in the same time cause they have a lot if bases across the continent. Meanwhile a traditional carrier needs to exam and study the introduction of every single route cause they have one or two bases. Swiss for example will launch only five routes this summer, Kosice, Cluj, Toronto, Washington DC and Seoul.
DeleteNewer fleet requires less maintenance? As far as I can see it requires grounding the aircraft, lol
DeleteCan you tell us the lottery numbers for next week, if you're so good with forecasting the future?
DeleteNew airplanes have teething issues, and that is expected, but nobody expected massive groundings of PW engines, that is affecting a lot of the airlines around the world.
That proves how unreliable P&W are. Pegasus and some other airlines were smart to pick CFM LEAP for their NEOs.
DeleteAnd don't think airlines will get comp'd by P&W - I expect them to be bankrupt once airlines start legal action against them.
Don't airlines usually get a spare set of engines when buying an airplane?
Delete*buy, not get.
DeleteAnon 11.02
DeleteI fly from BEG and I never flew with Wizz for €10 like you say. Heck I paid more €150 fares than €20 or €30 ones. Wizz might have lower costs but they do not have low fares. Maybe in some tertiary markets or in airports where there is competition like Tirana. However in most places their prices are standard.
Well i bought 15 euro one way ticket from Copenhagen to Skopje where there is no competition.
DeleteI was talking about BEG. In SKP they are subsidized by the airport (low charges) and in Milan they are fighting for marketshare so they have to be cheap.
DeleteIn BEG you can rarely find cheapest tickets for less than €25.
nothing is subsidized by the airport in SKP only LJU and FRA flights get subs but from the gov
Delete^ Lufthansa flights are subsidized by the government, Wizz Air's new roites are subsidized by the government.
DeleteAs long as passengers can travel via FRA, Fraport does not care about this.
ReplyDeleteThey see it as good news 😀
DeleteIt's excellent news!
DeleteI was in FRA airport recently, my word, the toilets there were barely usable.
Delete@11:32 Come on, don't just talk bad about FRA. It's one of the greatest airports in the world.
DeleteI was also in FRA and it's a fantastic airport. For a Lufthansa transfer from a Schengen airport to another Schengen airport it's fantastic.
Delete@ 12:48
DeleteNevermind the toilets, right? Who needs them!
@13:06 We all know that you are lying about the state of toilets. They are clean and very much usable.
DeleteFRA toilets are clean as long as you don't mind pee on the floor and papers all around.
DeleteFRA is also great if you don't need to access it. Either transport companies are on strike or farmers blocked access roads like today.
They had 2 flights per week right?
ReplyDeleteYes, but were supposed to have 3 this summer
Delete3-4 i believe
DeleteGoodness their A321neo has almost the same number of seats as two class A330s!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThat's called milking people's money and cramming them into a school bus.
DeleteLike every other airline then ?
Delete@19:50 Not even close. Nobody except easyjet & wizz pulls that stunt of cramming 239 pax on a narrowbody
DeleteThat's nuts but still not as crammed as Air Transat's 345 seats on the Toronto - Zagreb route with a 2 class config Airbus A330-200.
DeleteThe standard two class capacity for A321 is 185 seats.
One class capacity depending on configuration is about 200 to 220 max, so yeah they are definitely overcrowding their flights, but not as much as Air Transat.
A330-200's standard two class capacity, depending on a specific configuration, is between 245 and 265 max.
So, Wizz Air is adding 19 pax beyond the standard maximum. Air Transat on the other hand, is adding 80 pax beyond standard maximum and unlike Wizz Air's predominantly short haul flights, with an odd mid range 5 hour one, the Air Transat's Toronto to Zagreb is an 8 and a half hour flight.
In reality both Transat and Wizz are after the same kind of clients, the price sensitive ones.
DeleteSomeone who flies with either one might be angry if price grows by €5 so what they do is that they lower their CASM as much as possible.
Can anyone list how many flights there were between London and Ljubljana before the pandemic? I remember London was the busiest route from LJU.
ReplyDeleteThere were around three daily. This summer not even double daily.
DeleteAlmost as much as now, but then the main player was easyJet.
DeleteThere were 19 weekly London flights in summer 2019. This summer it will be 13.
Delete@9:11 and 9:12 more lies from delusional Fraport fanboys. For you less than two daily is as much as three daily and airlines offer more capacity compared to 2019 (2019 passengers: 230.000, compared to this year 130.000). We can then say LJU has almost as much traffic as in 2018. Bravo fanboys! Bravo Fraport!
DeleteWe can always disagree but no need for such tone. Yes, London frequencies and capacity are way below pre-pandemics. Only BA with more frequencies and capacity to LHR is a positive news when it comes to LON from LJU.
Delete@ 9:27
DeleteNo need to get so extreme so quickly. The first person did have a point, and you can always counter-argue, which you did. But let’s stop with this Balkan over-reacting please and calm down.
Still don't get why Wizz is not trying to find replacement for ground aircraft. To lease from other companies
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThey had over 20 machines in 2021, during the post-pandemic travel boom.
Why would they bother with that when they are going to get full compensation from the RTX (Pratt and Whitney) and that's the only thing they care about. Who cares about stranded passenger.
Delete....SmartLynx, Aura, Fly2Sky, Get Jet, Dan Air
DeleteThey are leasing. Good example is 9H-SAU, Boeing 737 operating for Wizz, check it yourself.
Delete@09:15 I very much doubt so. Once everybody sues P&W they'll declare bankruptcy very quickly.
Not a big loss for Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteLjubljana really isn’t in a position to loose any flights.
DeleteI have flown this route a few times, not in peak season, and the flights were always packed, I understand there are capacity issues but I am surprised they are cutting the route entirely vs. suspending (which they did already).
DeleteI flew the route in April and the flight was maybe 20% full. It was fantastic for me because I would have hated flying in Wizz's extra dense configuration
Delete@10:29 I am sure that they will return all the routes they cuted once the problem with the engines is solved. They cuted Basel - Ohrid which was busiest since the launch.
DeleteWizz is more or less a mess at the moment. Flew to bcn yesterday from beg, all their flights were delayed, some for more than 2 hours.
ReplyDelete@12:52 Maybe BCN but others were horribly delayed. Keep dreaming of 'on time' Wizzair. On the bright side I earned so much from their delays last summer lol
DeleteSo why did you mention BCN then? Lol, so keep flying with them.
DeleteI went with Wizzair from TRS to TIA, twice already, and both times was perfect!
DeletePerfect as in perfectly uncomfortable seats, perfectly expensive drinks & food onboard, perfectly tight legroom, perfect lowerback pain?
Delete#12.52h the flight was supposed to leve beg at 19.30h, and was delayed till 20.20h. Some people here…
DeleteWhy would I invent something that is so esy to check???
DeleteCrazy delay that
DeleteAs I said, that one was not so crazy, but all of the flights were delayed, some of which more then 2 hours. That tells something about an airline's ops...Nothing against wizz, on the contrary, but they are kind of a mess now, as I said in the first post.
DeleteI dont get your frustration. Your flight has been delayed for one hour and you are so frustrated that they sell food and drinks on board and that their seats are uncomfortable?
DeleteOkay, dont book ticket with them then. That is their business model, if you want free or cheap food and drinks and fat confortable seats and free luggage then dont expect 10 euro ticket. Not to mention that almost all airlines in Europe have the same design of economy class seats, take a look at Lufthansa, Air Serbia, Croatia, Eurowings, Austrian, KLM, BA, they just have a little more legroom. Now you will say that the ticket to BCN costed you so much and how is that possible. Well it is, not always you can find cheap tickets with them. In order for the tickets to be cheap, more add ons should be purchased, such as luggage, priority, food, insurance, seat and so on. Thats the point where they make the profit. The more add ons are bought, the cheaper the tickets will be. If only a few people purchase any of those then dont expect that they will sell 200 tickets for 20 euros cause at the end of the day they need to make some profit of your delayed flight. Last summer the delays were caused by your BEG Airport and they affected JU as well, so its not just Wizz. Next time before saying such things check on flightradar24 and see how many of their flights are delayed. I have flown with them for over 25 times from or to Skopje on different routes for vacation and my flights had been on time more or less. There had been some delayes, for example when i was returning from Malta but that was bacause two people were stuck at passport control and Wizz has nothing to do with them. There are many reasons for a flight to be delayed, it is not always Wizzair’s fold, you are talking like they want to be delayed every time, godness some delusional people here i cant understand.
Anon 17.27 how was the load on your flight?
DeleteAnon 18.07
What cheap tickets with Wizz Air? Their average one way fare in February for BEG-BCN is 10.708 RSD which is €90. Where do you see those €10 tickets? On top of that their BCN flights return to BEG in the middle of the night. Just pay a little bit more and fly like a human being with JU!
I am saying the same, fly with JU next time if you dont like Wizz.
DeleteDear anons, I am the one thad made the original post, and then replied 15.43. and 15.45. First of all, I am not frustrated at all, I was drinking beer at the VIP lounge, and I could have gone like that till the morning, I just said that ALL of Wizz's flights were delayed, while airserbia's, lufthansa's, austrian's, etc were not, so it has nothing to do with BEG. If all of your flights from an airport are delayed it tells something about your ops, or if you want it more clearly: at the moment they don't have enough planes, that was the only point of my original post. 2. the price I payed was ok, 450e for 3 persons and a baby and a suitcase, totally ok. The trip to Andorra in a 5 star hotel will cost me by far less then staying for 7 days at Viceroy Kopaonik. 3. the seats and everything else about wizz is totaly ok with me, always fly with them and will continue to do so. I guess anon 18.07 is regular customer of flight radar, so please enlighten us and tell us how many of their flights were delayed yesterday...25 times u flew with them is merely one year of my flights with them, so spare me please. My only point was that they are a mess at the moment, and everyone knows that. Surely I will continue to fly with them and surely they will get better when they have their fleet on the feet again.
DeleteHowever many times you write it, Wizz was not delayed from BEG to BCN yesterday. It landed at 22:16 for a 22:15 scheduled arrival time. It reached the stand at 22:23. A delay of 8 minutes is not classified as a delay because it's within 15 minutes of the itinerary arrival time. End of story.
DeleteSo many Wizz fanboys on here, God forbid you dare say something against them! Even when there are undeniable facts presented to them.
DeleteI truly hope easyjet steps in as Luton is their home airport
ReplyDeleteGuess we’ll fly from Zagreb now …
ReplyDeleteYou have easyJet in Ljubljana and Venice, Ryanair in Zagreb and Trieste, British Airways in Ljubljana and Zagreb, and Croatia Airlines in Zagreb. It's lots of choice
Delete…and Ryanair in Treviso and Klagenfurt and then in summer season: Ryanair also in Rijeka and Pula, as well as EasyJet and British Airways in Pula. London really is a must have destination
DeleteJust fly LJU-MUC/FRA-LHR and get it over with.
DeleteDoes anyone know if other airlines are likely to put on more flights? Was due to fly to Lake Bled in April, got a flight going out with EasyJet on the same day from Stanstead but so far there is nothing on the way back!
ReplyDelete