Originally Posted by
mockingjay
It's interesting how Scotland is losing flights. Luton, England has gained a WIZZ base, increased frequencies and upguages to A321.
Luton is Wizz Air's London base so you'd expect them to be expanding. Luton only becomes a base in June and will be home to only one A320. The airline will serve 42 destinations, 39 of which are served by non-based aircraft. It makes logistical sense to have a very well served airport become a base for the airline.
Airlines serve routes that have demand and make money. Wizz Air specialise in flights to Eastern Europe, so they will serve UK destinations that have high levels of Eastern Europeans. It doesn't depend on the total population of the area, as a service to say Paris might do. For example, Doncaster/Sheffield handles barely 1 million annual passengers, but the demand is there to operate 12 routes to Eastern Europe. Bristol has a much larger catchment area, but is only able to sustain three Wizz Air routes.
Evidently the demand is not there to sustain a Glasgow-Lublin service, meaning there are probably only small numbers of Eastern Poles living in Glasgow. However, if Wizz do research and find that lots of Lithuanians have moved to Scotland, they'll probably start a Vilnius service. If you look at all UK airports served by Wizz Air, each airport has a completely different combination of destinations based on the demographics of that area.
Regarding Wizz Air upgrading services to the A321, it's a much more efficient and gradual way to increase capacity on a route, and you shouldn't read into it too much. Remember that most of Wizz Air's routes to the UK are served only 2-3 times a week, so it's not as if they're adding thousands of extra seats a week on UK routes. For example, if Wizz serve a route twice weekly with an A320 and want to increase capacity, their options are to add a third weekly flight, or upgrade to the A321.
x2 weekly A320: 38,800 annual seats
x2 weekly A321: 49,690 annual seats
x3 weekly A320: 58,320 annual seats
By upgrading to the A321, it allows Wizz Air to increase capacity slightly so that they don't end up flying three half empty A320s each week.
Originally Posted by
VickersVicount
Have English bases gained the exact same routes that GLA has lost?
Here are the UK routes that will be added/dropped by Wizz Air this year;
Glasgow: Lublin dropped
Bristol: Kosice dropped
Liverpool: Lublin added
Luton: Kutaisi, Pristina, Tel Aviv added