How many of the settlements weren't settled in January? What did the CAA do after that deadline was missed?

This airline treats its staff atrociously and its pax no better. You can sort of get away with that if you're the cheapest but they're not even that on a lot of their routes. They've the worst punctuality, the worse customer service and they're not even cheap.

Unless you've simply no other alternative why would you ever fly Wizz?

Why fly Wizz ? Because sometimes they really are the cheapest, their Flex scheme means fares can be refundable (to a degree) for modest cost until 3 hours before departure, and the schedule matches what I or other customers want

I thought the Flex wasn't a refund but a Wizz air voucher, which has to be used in 90 days and they subtract an admin fee for allowing you to do it!

I just, personally, would rather fly on another competitor than Wizz.

Flex is indeed not a true refund. However, if you use Wizz several times per year and know you will be buying more Wizz tickets within 3 months, then Flex effectively makes a ticket refundable. Yes, you have to pay about £10 per person per one way flight for the privilege, but if the original ticket is £100 and you think at the time of buying a ticket that you may want to cancel, it's a motivator to use Wizz as opposed to Ryanair who have a (almost) no-refunds-ever policy.

I'm not saying Wizz is perfect... but for some people, there can sometimes be strong reasons to choose Wizz over other airlines, even when there is a choice of airline on a route.

Very good article in today's Times Newspaper about Wizz...

Wizz Air: what went wrong at Britain’s worst airline -
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/w...line-vglww6db8
(The Times is a subscription newspaper, but if you clear your cookies and internet history will allow you to read one article.)

Sounds like they admit there have been issues with their UK operations and are looking to improve, which is good.

I'm still a fan of the airline and not had any major issues. Couldn't have gone to Jordan, if it wasn't for their amazing fares. £38 return LTN-AMM!

Wizz Abu Dhabi's 321neo deliveries are being taken by Wizz Air Malta (first example A6-WZI -> 9H-WDV) and some 321ceos will be transferred to AUH instead.

9H-WDV

That sounds like the P&W Neo engines are not coping well in the UAE environment and this is a defensive reallocation of the fleet to reduce exposure to the Pratts’s problems.

I've become aware of somewhat sloppy procedures at an airport which Wizz flies out of based on first-hand observations. It's not in a liberal democracy state, and talking to airport staff is unlikely to get a well-intentioned reaction. Most of the other airlines are Govt-owned from authoritarian countries. Would anybody be able to message me an email address at Wizz to which I can send observations, and which won't just lead to the information being "filed"

I would doubt they would be remotely interested.

Wizz have announced 10 new routes from Tirana, to Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bucharest, Sofia, Prague and Krakow will start in the forthcoming winter season. whilst flights from Tirana to Malta, Palermo, and Chania start in March.
Frequencies increased to Luton (from 21 to 35 per week), other increases to Milan, Bologna, Beauvais, Charleroi, Catania, Warsaw, Pisa, Venice, Rome and Skavsta.
They will have competition from Ryanair's new base at Tirana, offering flights to Bologna, Bucharest, Charleroi, Catania, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Edinburgh, Krakow, Stansted, Manchester, Milan, Beauvais, Pisa, Prague, Rome, Stockholm, Venice, and Warsaw.
Let battle commence!

Expansion in Tirana continues, espacially after FR announced their entry in the market. 11th based aircraft was announced for this winter.

Skopje will get a 6th and Catania a 4th a/c this winter.

By 2025 all based aircraft at LTN will be switched to A321neo.

There seems to be a (new) problem with Pratt & Whitney engines which will require substantial and lengthy engine inspection. The Wizz share price has declined. How serious is this in reality for Wizzair ?

I don't if you've noticed that all UK airline shares have dropped in recent days due to catasrophic fires in Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean in the height of the tourist season.

I'm talking particularly about this news story
https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...ry-2023-07-25/

Yes this directly affects Wizzair, we already know the NEO with these engines at the Abu Dhabi base have been having hot & dusty issues with CEOs brought in which are more reliable.
If you speak to an engineer he will say stick with a CEO irrespective of the fuel burn.

seanm1997 is reporting that the toothless wonder, the CAA has finally grown its 'milk teeth' and taken action regarding Wizz Air's allegedly laissez faire attitude to paying EU261 claims.

Not before time.

Be interesting to see if this actually has any effect.

https://www.caa.co.uk/newsroom/news/...inst-wizz-air/

In all seriousness, how do Wizzair survive? So many of their flights are either cancelled or delayed over 3 hours, surely the EU261 must be costing them a fortune? Even without that, the reputation also damage must be having an impact on loads.

Such a shame.

Are Wizz really seeing an operational meltdown or is it just the press trying to make a story ? An hour or two of delay isn't what people want.... but most passengers will be able to tolerate this occasionally without getting particularly upset. The share price seems to have taken more of a hit from the Pratt & Whitney engine recall story earlier this week, compared to the CAA trying to show some teeth today.
Looking at LTN and BUD airport arrivals on FR24, I don't see anything particularly terrible given that it's currently peak summer and the aviation system is running at close to capacity

BUD is a mess recently, they are in the news every day with at least one overnight delay every day (in Basel, Milan and Abu Dhabi, the latter being the winner with 30 hours of delay). Today eight of their last nine flights were late at least an hour (up to three) and it was the first "calm" day of the week.
The Minister of Economy and Tourism of Romania protested to the EU (Commissioner for Justice) because of the amount of disruption.
Economy Minister talks with European consumer protection commissioner about Wizz Air's problems (stiripesurse.ro)

Seeing that the CAA have got involved again regarding Wizz refusing legitimate compensation claims, it is a bit more than the press making a story.

The airline is either incompetent or knowingly acting illegally and hoped to get away with it.

Started the day in BUD with three delays again, 7 hours to WAW, 01:30 to BRU and an hour to ORY.

More orders by end of year to secure delivery slot?
 

Another 75 321NEOs ordered
https://simpleflying.com/wizz-air-or...irbus-a321neo/

I've seen news reports about Wizzair being about to cut some flights from the schedules to handle the Pratt&Whitney A320 engine recall.
Would anyone be able to say when the relevant flights will be taken off sale from the website so that one can be more certain which flights will or won't operate ?

Hard to know but the September closure of the Tuzla base and removal of one aircraft from Varna could already cover 3 of the 6 aircraft. I’m sure there have already been other quiet cuts across the network.

The announcement Monday says "Wizz Air announces today that due to the accelerated inspections of several of our GTF engines mandated by Pratt & Whitney, we have made adjustments to the network resulting in cancellations of some flights on selected days between certain destinations"
So assume booking engine already appended.

They have also taken the new UK - Tirana routes off sale.

For what dates, I still see x3 daily Luton in September?

Which airport? They all started in December as far as I was aware. The three, BHX, LPL and EDI have now been removed from the booking system and not just marked as not for sale.

Could this be a registration issue? Not sure if Albania would require G registered aircraft to run the route?

I could see Wizz using the Pratt issues as a fig leaf for their own crewing issues.

I suspect they expected Albania to be accepted into EU so could operate with W6/W4 aircraft, this has not happened so has to be a W9 aircraft which is not going to happen this year either. A W pattern from Luton or Gatwick is a risk when more good money can be made somewhere else.
I note Ryanair Albania flights from STN are operating via RUK.

It’s not just randomly announced when a country will join the EU. A date is usually given 12 months or more in advance and usually it’s 1 Jan 20XX. I seriously doubt the routes were planned on the basis that Wizz thought Albania would suddenly get EU membership.

Or maybe a cockup by planning, wouldn't be the first time an airline has been tripped up in such a way.

There is no date set for Albania’s EU accession. It could take several years. Wizz Air will have known this. Flights between UK and Albania would have to be operated by a Wizzair UK aircraft. They do not seem to rotate aircraft through non Wizz Air UK bases, so I question what the plan was. I do wonder whether the original announcement, timed to coincide with Ryanair’s announcement, was a spoiling tactic.

Looking at the Wizzair booking engine, for the Luton > Tirana route which goes from x3 daily to x5 daily, the extra flights it says are operated by Wizz Air Malta ie W4 rather than W9. How does that work then?

I believe it operates as a lease to Wizz Air UK. The aircraft is LTN based. As a lease it would be permitted to operate under bilateral agreements.

So like a Wet lease then. Perhaps Management were expecting crew to be Luton based and run W legs to EDI, LPL & MAN.
A search today and it is back to just x3 day again from Luton so looks like the whole x5 day expansion has been dropped.
Perhaps bookings were poor with so much extra capacity from RYR coming online or they have been pulled by CAA saying needs to be proper W9 aircraft. A one off lease to cover a Tech issue is Ok, as I have seen with RYR on RAK route very occasionally, but run a whole season in this way is not permitted.

Unless prior permission is sought and justified to the CAA.

Probably falling foul of CAA on refunds hasn't helped such a justification.

What Crewing issues?