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Two Wizz Air A320s Collide in Suceava, Romania - AVS (aviationsourcenews.com)

Looks like they ran HA-LYP over from Iasi to cover at least one of these aircraft.

There is some debate on the Luton thread about Wizzair being very slow to comply with CCJs for EU261 non-compliance
As Wizz fly from multiple UK airports rather than just Luton, I'm posting on the Wizz thread

How difficult would it be for an ordinary passenger with a friendly (non-aviation-specialist) lawyer who has gained a CCJ to arrest an aircraft in the UK that is operated by a Wizz group airline to enforce payment of the CCJ and costs ? Would the passenger recover High Court, lawyer and bailiff costs ? Are Wizz UK aircraft owned by Wizz UK or are they all leased and the property of other companies ? Do Wizz Hungary have any substantial assets in the UK which a bailiff could seize, and would a court bailiff have access, or would airport security prevent access ? Is airport management duty bound to allow the arrest of the aircraft, or can they close ranks and prevent access to the aircraft until it's departed the airport ? Are tickets with Wizz that involve flying on Wizz UK aircraft enforceable against Wizz UK, or is everything enforceable solely against Wizz Hungary ? Could a company winding up order against Wizz UK be an option ?

(Yes, Mrs Johnson sometimes describes me as an aggressive little sh*t)

Of course there are Wizz assets to be seized but not behind the locked empty room that serves as Wizz Air U.K. HQ.

Wizz Air’s partner, London Luton Airport Operations Ltd, makes sure they remain hidden for the bailiffs but the sheriffs have more powers and cannot be stopped by airport security. I would recommend they start at the crew and opps room and then head for the apron.

How to seize an aircraft over a debt at a cost of £71 win or fail.
https://www.thesheriffsoffice.com/se...on-enforcement

Not sure they have such powers in a Sterile boarders area without an apron pass and a nod from the Airport, Boarder force & CAA.
It is not like in the linked article where a plane was directed to a quiet area and provision for secure storage had been made.
None of these is easily practical at Luton Airport.

Plan A Bring a passport to the airport and demand access. They just then need an escort and cannot be impeded from executing a high court writ.
Plan B Buy a £10 ticket and slap a writ on the door when boarding. Wizz can argue the toss as to who owns the aircraft or pay up. In the mean time the aircraft can’t be moved so it is cheaper to pay.

Heathrow example on how to ground an aircraft with the aid of the police.

https://absoluteenforcement.com/inde...gh-court-writ/

I also note the Heathrow incident with these guys when a Writ was served on Delta Airlines for £2,800 owed to a pax. A manager paid up in the end on their own CC, in front of Channel 5 TV crew of course. Alot of comment about the legality in real life to seize a plane in this way, first need to prove who owns it, then if the plane is stopped from revenue flights, who compensates other pax, the airport etc. In the TV programme their are regular shots of Malaysian Airlines, surprised CH5 didn't get sued for defamation.
In practice pay for your flight on a Credit Card, they will fully refund you and just Debt the airline accordingly. That will hurt them much quicker!

Credit card bill has to be at least £100. Also a credit card won't pay the compensation these people have been awarded.

https://www.travelgossip.co.uk/lates...rst-offenders/

I dearly hope you aren’t remotely serious here? This is absolutely not the way to go about this.

So what is the way to go? They have already stated months ago that they don’t recognise U.K. law yet they were happy to receive furlough money from HM government.

CAA seriously need to act. Tell them they've a set time period to comply with the CCJs or there will be punishments.

Wizz are acting like cowboys. I certainly wouldn't book a ticket with them.

Bailiffs at LTN:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...herts-64999557

One can see comments all round about this (trade press, mainstream news) that the CAA have been useless. Whatever as a "regulator" do they do nowadays for their state funding ?

Slow everyone else down with their bureaucracy perhaps.

Theres a lot Wizz Air, particularly WUK have managed and continue to get away with, that many others wouldn't. Starts to make me think they (Wizz Air) have some kind of hold over the CAA and regulators. I guess money talks... but not for the everyday person.

No that is not the case. The reality is the CAA like every aspect of the industry are still catching up with all the Covid related stuff and unfortunately the pile of claims to them has continued to grow. They will always try and refer customers to other methods of escalation because if they didn’t they would need to build a dedicated team to handle them and who pays for that. Arguably they use to have this in the form of the Air Transport Users Council but that disappeared.

Many of the airlines are the same - profit margins are tight and so they won’t give money away freely. Not without making it difficult.

Or they go to Wizz UK and see whether they are operating within the tems of the licence they have issued to them...

But that won’t happen. Of all the airlines in the U.K. I think only Jet2 and possibly Loganair are rarely complained about from customers seeking compensation as per legislation. Although you can still find some lurking in the weeds for those carriers too.

Usually this sort of stuff is mopped up in a wider case where multiple airlines are held accountable by the CAA and action taken, rather than carriers on an individual basis. I’m sure Wizz will have their comeuppance one day.

They have a total hold over Luton Airport. I wouldn’t be surprised if the airport wasn’t the chief lobbyist for Wizz with the CAA There used to be passenger rights posters by the ticket desks but they were taken down by the airport when the queues got too long.

The CAA can't even process licences in a prompt and timely manner so I think we might be waiting a while before they act on Wizz.

Their fiscal year ends on 31MAR. It's life or death for them to cling on to every last escudo to improve their balance (at least on paper) after the last two quarters which were not exactly shiny.

Claims for refunds should be shown as a liability in the balance sheet, otherwise the auditors (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) are not doing their job properly.

Even if Royal Maill did not find them with those letters yet as they claim it? ;)

Why on earth not? It is appalling the airline is allowed to operate a single flight while in its current legal position but since the CAA doesn't seem capable, direct action with bailiffs is absolutely the right way to go.

Does anybody know why today and I believe Saturday, Wizzair planes have been flying to Maastricht?

Usually at this time of the year there's a couple of inbound diversions from a fog-bound Eindhoven, but this is not the case for these. Today (27th March) alone there have been arrivals (and departures back to) Katowice, Cluj, Podgorica and Budapest. The diverts typically position back to Eindhoven and pick up their schedule. Not the case here (+ Eindhoven isn't fog bound today).

They seem to stay around 40 minutes, so they are not visiting the paintshop which is the usual source of inbound commercial airliners from companies not usually flying from here.

Looks as though they are flights rescheduled from Dortmund due to the German public service(?) unions industrial action today.

Titan 321NEO into LTN tomorrow for W9 doing a Palma then a Burgas. Something else sick? You wouldn't think Wizzair are short of aircraft?
Better than canx them on short notice, you can see the claims into the distance!

Currently Wizz Air Hungary operates as W6, and most (if not all) Wizz Air UK flights operate as W9. Wizz Air Malta has a W4 IATA code, AFAIK, use a W6 code, except for the occasional special charter or positioning flight. Yes, I know Wizz Abu Dhabi has 5W, but they are somewhat separate to the rest of the company.
I recall reading somewhere that Wizz Air Malta might start using W4 for normal scheduled flights in its own right, but can't remember where I read this... but I do remember wondering if this was really true or just a bit of unreliable gossip.

Would anyone in the know care to comment on this ?

It's happening. The GCOC of Wizz Malta (valid from yesterday) is published on their site and they started to notify passengers about the change of operator on existing bookings. 52 aircraft are already registered in Malta and all new deliveries are going to W4 as well.

So why the difference? Ryanair just use FR across the fleet for the EU registered aircraft?

G-POWT Still working for Wizzair out of Luton, this is day 8, is this a serious effort to keep the program stable or are they short of crew or late delivery of a NEO?

GTF issues?

She is due back at STN tonight. All W9 aircraft flying today as well.
Perhaps just an overlap in some Winter routes vs the new routes ie Istanbul.

Wizz Air perform worst for flight delays https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65228868

Given the network Wizz offers I'm surprised to see the level of delays mentioned along with fines and enforcement action.

The financial stuff seems to me unforgivable, but this... meh.

Reminds me of ships and flags of convenience from countries like Panama and Liberia.

Wasn’t it Wizz that encourage their pilots to carry on working when tired to help the airline out?

Or in this case, a bona fide EASA member state…

Wizzair U.K. is not an EASA but rather a U.K. AOC that the U.K. CAA is responsible for regulating. My personal view, having had significant involvement with Wizzair, is that it is a disgrace, both the airline and the regulation of it.

My understanding is that Wizz operates with aircraft on the AOCs of Hungary, Malta and the UK in some varying proportion. For example, daily flight W6 3504 at 21.30 from London Luton to Timisoara in Romania appears to have operated in the last week with aircraft either on Malta or Hungary AOCs on alternating days. Other flights from Luton are on UK-registered aircraft.