Wizz Air Malta operate with a TIA based aircraft.

But that cannot run a UK route aka the x5 daily cannot be run, stick with existing x3 daily with W9 aircraft.
Capacity restrictions at Luton & Gatwick holding back things. Place your bets for next W9 base, BHX?

1 x TIA ac and 1 x LTN ac….

Hope not, BHX needs airlines, not a right shower of charlatans!

If they want to set up at BHX nobody can stop them, but I don't think I would be offering incentives to them.

In the 1990s... people thought Easyjet were a bunch of cowboys... some airport chose to encourage Easyjet (e.g. Liverpool) while others kept Easyjet at arms length until they realised it was too late. As far as I know, slots at Birmingham do not trade for the same kind of money as those at Heathrow, which suggests Birmingham has space. If Wizz can pay the airport fees and BHX can make a profit on the revenue associated with the flight (airport fees, car parking, retail sales, etc...), then BHX should grab the business.

In the 90's people thought EZY had a business model that couldn't be sustained - I don't think ATN means that, it's not the business model, but the way it is being implemented...

I imagine that ATNotts thinks that Wizzair are a bunch of money-grabbing b*st*rds who treat everyone like sh*t and are run by a small group of people solely out to make as much money as possible as fast as possible for themselves. That's exactly what I think of Wizzair.
My last flight with Wizz, about 2 weeks ago, arrived 2h50m late (so no EU261 compensation) landing at Luton at 4 am and my getting home at 5:45 am. Yes, I had to work the next day. Since then, I have booked plenty more flights with Wizzair. Mrs Johnson and I are currently looking at visiting Cairo and the Pyramids next year. Wizzair can be very cheap, and we get to see large areas of Europe, North Africa and West Asia with them.
I stand by my previous opinion on BHX and Wizzair - you can either be a stuffy old fart in life decrying things as not good enough and consequently doing nothing... or you can dive in to life and make the best of the (non-perfect) opportunities available.

No problem with that, but your comparison to easyJet was poorly framed. I don't think EZY back in the 90's were regarded as "a bunch of cowboys" in the same way as Wizz are now.

Ryanair were definitely regarded as a bunch of cowboys and look at them today.

It would appear that Wizz's view of passenger legislation is at odds with the CAA's, and the manner in which they screwed over DSA and CWL would lead me to be very reluctant to incentivise Wizz to operate from any airport, unless they were desperate for business.

If they want to acquire slots and operate at the going rate that would be fine, but caveat emptor should apply when booking flights with Wizz. That of course applies to some extent for all airlines, tour operators etc.

BHX is there to make money and like RYR, if they can generate an uptake of pax then they will be happy. Let's face it, they don't have the likes of BA fighting them off for slots because LHR is full.

Wizz are the equivalent of a second hand dodgy car salesman. They take your money and when things go wrong they often walk away and then don’t comply with EU or U.K. laws. They also have a bad habit of ignoring CCJ’s.

Same could have been said of Ryanair some years ago - there were plenty of horror stories such as people on a Sunday evening being told they had a choice of getting their £30 back or waiting 4 days for a flights home... and then having to hire a coach to drive them from an airport in southern France to Calais before catching a ferry.

Agreed, Ryanair has sort of become respectable as there is a new villain in town. Not surprised at all that Luton sees Wizz as their partner. I take the view that both sets of owners are shady.

Yep still a bunch of cowboys!

Europe’s biggest airline, Europe’s most profitable airline … and gets positive consumer ratings these days. Things change.

And you still have to fight for any payments you are due for delays.

On one highly anecdotal and potentially specious metric (the number of people being charged money at the gate on Ryanair flights I'm flying on) either people have learned how to deal with them or they have indeed cut back on, as MOL put it, "unneccessarily pissing people off" (or both).

9H-WBK has been used on W9 route from Luton to Tirana last few days, but G-WUKM has been laid up for 3 days so perhaps technically a sub for a sick plane.

My Wizz Air flight from Warsaw to Liverpool was delayed by over 3 and a half hours on 9th July and I put a EU-261 claim the next day. The money was paid into my account 18 days later. I was quite impressed.

Yep, that's the new norm, people are impressed that their Wizz flight is delayed over 3 hours and they get what they are entitled to by the law.

Hard to believe. There is no monetary compensations in this law (EU 261/2004) for delays.

Yes there is. You are talking rubbish Dmitri

Not according to the EU.
"If you arrived at your final destination with a delay of more than 3 hours, you are entitled to compensation, unless the delay was due to extraordinary circumstances. The airline has to prove this by providing, for example, extracts from logbooks or incident reports. The air carrier should give this evidence to the relevant national enforcement body as well as to the passengers concerned in line with national provisions on access to documents."

Compensation - delay at arrival

Amount in EUR Distance

250 1 500 km or less

400 More than 1 500 km within the EU and all other flights between 1 500 and 3 500 km

600 More than 3 500 km

Back in service today at LTN so need to charter Titan should have now gone, until GTF engine checks start.

I don't know who is talking rubbish here.
Please find a link describing the law in force: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-cont...x%3A32004R0261

Big Tudor, you can use those funny websites as much as you want, however, I would suggest to stick to the official law.
Please refer to articles 6 and 9. Article 8 (1) (a) is also relevant for delays of 5 hours or more.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizen...x_en.htm#delay

A link to that “funny website” , or the official EU website as it is also known.

Apologies, I assumed wrongly you were quoting something like AirHelp.
At the bottom of this page there is a link (last one) on the EU legislation in force. I have quoted the relevant articles in my previous post.
Sorry, but it does not provide any provisions for monetary compensations for delays regardless of someone's interpretation of it.

Click on the hyperlink where it says "compensation". This takes you to the table showing the monetary amounts as set out by the EU relative to the length of sector.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e42188c338.jpg

For those doubtful people about booking Wizzair, they are still expanding well.
https://www.sharecast.com/news/news-...-14583144.html

Last airline I would fly as they see CCJ's as medals of honour.

Suceava base will be closed by end of October.

10% capacity reduction for H2.
Wizz expects P&W engine issues to limit capacity - 14:31:33 11 Sep 2023 - WIZZ News article | London Stock Exchange

Some here will hate this https://simpleflying.com/wizz-air-un...a-huge-network

Wizz have recently been adding routes to
Baku - Abu Dhabi, Budapest, Rome
Yerevan - Abu Dhabi, Dortmund, Larnaca, Milan, Rome, Sofia, Venice, Vienna

It looks like the ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan has collapsed, and hostilities have resumed. Any thoughts as to what Wizz does next ? Use it as an excuse to suspend some routes for a couple of months while they deal with the A320 engine problem ?

I'm sure GTX will be paying through the nose with compensation, should give them some breathing space to ram up some areas but might defer some announced routes yet to prove themselves.

are you for real?

The latest issue of Wizz's in flight magazine is pushing very hard to promote visiting Saudi Arabia as a tourist. No, not as a pilgrim or being a resident... but going for a short visit seeing the sights and doing whatever seems fun to do. The push is not just on the Abu Dhabi subdidiary fleet... but also in the seat back pocket of the UK, Hungary and Malta fleets.

I'd be curious to visit Jeddah, Riyadh or some of the other places... but a tourist visa is expensive (albeit not that difficult to get) and a free 96 hour transit visa requires tickets in and out of Saudi with either Saudia or Flynas.

Wizz probably could be good for Saudi tourism... they are cheap enough that I'd take a punt on visiting Saudi if it included a free or very cheap visa... but not being able to sponsor free 96 hour transit visas makes this a non-starter for me and probably others who might be interested. Is being able to sponsor Saudi transit visas definitely politically impossible ? Does Wizz even need foreign tourists to fill their Saudi flights, or would this be just a bonus ?

I think the Visa is now 80USD, like Egypt can be done on arrival and valid for 90 days.
The Jordan Visa is about 40USD and that hasn't stopped that route from being a success.

Egypt visas are free for Sharm el Sheikh and US$25 for anywhere else. Just hand over the cash, and you get a sticker to put in your passport... absolutely minimal form filling, 1 minute processing time, and almost zero chance of rejection.... it is really just a $25 admission fee, and sufficiently cheap and easy to obtain that it's not of concern.

Saudi wants $80 plus insurance and processing fees... which comes to $120 per person in total... enough to make you think twice... unless you are in transit for under 96 hours in which case it becomes free and drastically simpler. Is there no way for Wizz to sponsor these 96 hour transit visas ?