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?