It wouldn't be hard to click on the name of the author (a certain individual going by the Hungarian name of John Woods) to see what he wrote about Wizz recently. Surely not a covert operation to advertise the company:
"Wizz Air considerably changed its summer schedule, ticket prices expected to grow"
"Hungarian Wizz Air in trouble: several popular flights could be cancelled"
"Wizz Air chaos: Hungarians stuck in Abu Dhabi without food, water"

Good check. Certainly a man (or alias) on a mission who gets things published on a few media channels, some just click bait. Has a bee in his bonnet about Romania but that might be his political stance, as I said, Hungary regularly upsets it's neighbours.

XLRs coming to the UK. https://www.routesonline.com/news/29...habi-uk-units/

Best luck to anyone getting on a 239 seat A321 for upto 8 hours with Wizz Air seats and service...

Norwegian fly 737-800s daily in winter from Helsinki non-stop to Tenerife in 6h40 and very few people seem to make a fuss.... is being a passenger on a Wizz A321 really that much worse than on a Norwegian B737 ?

In July, Wizz will begin flying between Milan Malpensa and Abu Dhabi in 7h20. They will fly you one way for £45 (or £35 if you are in their discount club) in November from MXP to AUH - maybe one can buy some food and water at the airport and bring a portable charger to watch a couple of films on your tablet on the way... and use the money saved to do something else

I'm not saying 8 hours on a Wizz A321 is for everyone... but if the price is right, people will take interest

Could it open up new UK routes for Wizz (US? DXB?) or would it be more a case of efficiencies on existing longer-range routes eg TFS, SSH?

US no, CEO already on record saying not a priority. What efficency to TFS, seat same as a standard 321.
DXB yes, and the article says "Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, as well as central and western Africa.”
If the price is right people will put up with 8 hours.

An 8 hour flight would be the last of my worries. I would more worried about last minute cancellations and the airline ignoring CCJ’s so leaving me out of pocket.

Yep, nor does using a bigger aircraft than the 320; introducing allocated seating and baggage fees; opening western-european bases; using primary airports; selling domestic flights; scheduling flights beyond three hours of flight time etc. All said not being a priority by the CEO at one point.

Not defending their behaviour but wasn't that Nov/Dec news, I'm sure I read it was said they had settled 91% of all known claims now but their was also a bottleneck in the UK courts system of advising all parties of their decisions which did not help anyone.
I think the CAA review these things quarterly so an updated situation should be published soon.

Agreed regarding cancellations and not paying compensation, at least in my experience from a flight they cancelled due to lightning strike and are currently refusing to even refund the money paid for it (claiming I was a no-show on their systems when I have pictures of myself standing in front of a cancelled flight screen in the airport on the day), and ignoring compensation claims as well under UK261.

On the other hand, Wizz air often insanely cheap for longer routes other carriers take hefty amounts for. That can be quite useful, assuming you don't intend to rely on them far in advance (since they will cancel a non-popular route mid year),while understanding that they'll try and charge you crazy amount for anciliaries on said longer routes if you don't find a way to manage without those.

On the US route/expansion, I would love to see A321XLR Luton/Gatwick Transatlantic flights, but it does seem from their statements their current direction at least is eastward. I've heard from Indian colleagues that price for UK - India flights are insanely high, even with one stop, perhaps due to a strong BA/Air India presence. If Wizz wishes to continue expanding upon their original model - immigrant oritented flights, now instead of relying on eastern/central europe immigrants going back home, they can do the same for Indian diaspora both in UAE and UK. VFR, from my limited aviation knowledge, is considered quite a strong base for a route since it is fairly year-round. US Expansions has historically not gone well for low cost companies, for many reasons I'm sure I can't even fathom, but I would imagine you would not wish to do a retread of something many have failed at, and routes where there is already strong competition (including from Norse, another new long haul low cost contender), while you can simply go for routes where there's little to no low cost competition.

I will be interested in seeing how they handle these long flights though, which have always been said to be tough to make a profit on with the low cost model. Their expansion patterns are so erratic sometimes, it's hard to see how they can continue on, but perhaps their approach of throwing everything on the wall and seeing what sticks can help them determine which of the many many Abu Dhabi routes is a keeper. Bad passenger experience, sure, but I guess they're not too concerned.

I'm sure India/UK is subject to bilateral agreements so you can't just start such routes but I'm sure IndiGo would love to come to London with their 321XLRs so maybe that is the time for Wizzair with their similar equipment once they start to arrive.....
There is a big expansion of airports in India currently so secondary airports will welcome international connections away from the traditional trunk routes.

Why do Wizz need to do UK-India nonstop flights with all the costs and passenger expectations that go with 9 hour flights ? Couldn't they instead just build a low-budget self-connect version of Emirates' megahub in Abu Dhabi ?

Race to the bottom. It explains nicely why flying is no longer a joy but a total paIn with airports full of stressed miserable looking passengers. Maybe Wizz Air should change its name to Misery Air to reflect the customer experience of modern day travel where a small piece of luggage can cost more than a seat.

I wonder who invented that?

https://www.itv.com/news/2023-02-22/...-uk-passengers

15 years ago, the UK thought Ryanair was a terrible airline. We still booked with Ryanair because it was cheap. Wizz can sometimes give very cheap fares

For free. Anything else and the carry on bag can cost more than the human.

With 45M customers last year and rising fast, as with Ryanair a few years ago, it's not going to stop the growth.

It seems that IAG really will buy the 80% of Air Europa that they do not already own, and removes one of Iberia's main competitors.
Should Wizz be expanding significantly at Madrid, and on routes besides those to eastern Europe ? Is there space and are there slots at suitable times for such an expansion ?