The Image comes from OAG which is a more respected source though.

Only to compete with Norwegian in an attempt to finish them off and get their Gatwick slots. As soon as that didn't work, they pulled out. There's only so long you can fly empty aircraft around to try to damage a competitor.

I wonder if they might do BFS and EDI since those two airports, along with LGW and Wizzair, were co-signatories to a letter requesting a return to the 80/20 slot rules. BFS and EDI aren't directly affected by such rules, but perhaps Wizz have said to them 'We'll serve you from LGW if we can get more slots there".

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bri...zz-2021-11-09/

There is only so long you can fly empty aircraft around and try to get away with shady employment practices. Have basically the whole country against you with even the PM calling travellers to boycott you resulting load factors around 20%. Divert much as your OM designed for CEE simply bans operation in conditions the locals flying in and out without problem. Then leave the whole country in a hurry (like two weeks notice) a day before the local CAA would conduct a hearing/audit about the mentioned practices. It had nothing to do with Norwegian.

And why do you think they entered the Norway domestic market in the first place? It had everything to do with Norwegian.

Norwegian was already dead by that time. Itt was because of a hundred aircraft being grounded for covid and another twenty being delivered each year without prospect of flying. They thought domestic flying was the way ahead against travel restrictions between countries. That's why they launched large scale domestic ops in Norway and Italy. As usual they got it wrong. Norway is cancelled, Italy just got chopped. 60-70 aircraft are still on ground with 2-3 new deliveries each month. Next stint is LGW and then god knows what.

If they've got 70 aircraft grounded, it's surprising they have subchartered Titan at Luton.

Wizz will launch six new daily routes on 27 March – Faro, Palma, Vienna, Rome, Milan and Tel Aviv. Daily Chania flights will start on 7 April followed by daily Larnaca flights on 11 April.Other additions include:

• Naples (four-times-weekly on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, starting 27 March)
• Funchal (twice-weekly on Mondays and Fridays, starting 28 March)
• Bari (twice-weekly on Tuesdays and Saturdays, starting 29 March)
• Podgorica (four-times-weekly on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, starting 7 April)
• Catania (three-times-weekly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, starting 8 April)
• Mykonos (four-times-weekly on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, starting 12 April)

Wizz’s additional Gatwick aircraft will also operate several existing routes, including Malaga and Athens. In total, Wizz will offer 22 seasonal and non-seasonal routes at Gatwick.

As of this very monent (the day of the year when the demand is far the highest) there are 99 flying out of 149 in the fleet. It's usually around 70-80. With 250 routes supended for January-March it will only be less than that (and more deliveries are on their way).
The answer is crew (or an AOG).

In Jan/Feb 2020, did Wizz have a substantial number (ie more than 10) of aircraft either grounded or with very low hours utilisation per week, due to seasonal low demand for travel ? Ryanair's fleet utilisation was far from 100% at the time

I'm wondering how much of Wizz's grounded fleet is due to Covid... and how much is because leisure travel in Europe in winter just has low demand

Correction: out of 150 in the fleet (as another one was delivered by Airbus today) which will become 151 in a few days.

Have Wizz changed the seating policy? I booked cheap (extremely cheap) flights a few days back to fly out to gran Canaria tomorrow, and like always I choose the basic fare. But when I try to check in, and allow wizz to choose my seats, it forces me to have to pay for them. It seems there is no way around having to pay for them.

Surely it would not be hard to check basic facts (like the current number of aircraft) before writing such a piece.

Does Wizz Air have any competence in managing their schedule, or is it quite normal to cancel flights without notifying customers less than two months before flying?

I booked DSA-AGP-DSA a couple of days ago for 27/3 and 30/3, and I've found out today (without any call or text to myself) that they've cancelled the 30/3 and subsequent Wednesday flights.

Considering Doncaster is one of their 'new' bases, the constant chopping and changing of their schedules indicates a poorly run airline that throws darts at the wall (pertaining to destinations) and has no regard for when those darts just fall off the wall.

Lots of big announcements about adding new routes and expanding rapidly whilst quietly slicing away at existing bookings/routes with no regards to their passengers.

Considering the well publicised negative treatment they give their pilots, the fact they hold their customers with such contempt is very telling.

Perhaps a bit of market research regarding route viability before entering into contracts with passengers wouldn't go amiss.

I'm no expert but they can do what they want up to 14 days before departure.
TUI recently have been cancelling flights just days before so you have been lucky!
Not enough bums on seats mean running at loss = probably canx.

Yeah, the evergreen phrase about "cash positive flying". How come they managed to make a loss of 200 odd million Euros in the last quarter then?

Wizz have snuck four more LGW routes in to Bourgas, Varna, Palermo and Venice, whilst increasing frequencies on Milan, Larnaca and Vienna.

More capacity dumping on already served routes whilst missing glaringly obvious unserved markets like Warsaw, as well as dumping Gdansk and Cluj which had 80%+ load factors pre-pandemic. I wonder how much cash they have to burn in this pursuit of market share and brand recognition.

Is demand for flying strong enough in Warsaw to be worth adding a few aircraft to Poland ?
Would UK airline employees criticise if Wizz dumped capacity on leisure routes from France or Germany ?
I don't know the Polish market that well... but it's clear that in the second half of last year, Wizz significantly overexpanded - perhaps sending aircraft to Ciudad Real or Teruel might have been a better choice

They live on forward bookings (and transforming that money to "credits" with constant schedule changes). It will only continue as they announced recently that they plan the summer season with 170 aircraft (vs the current 150). The winter schedule (until the end of March) was butchered back in December - omicron is used as an excuse while it was barely a theoretic thing on 05DEC when they did it - but I quess the summer schedule will get the chop sooner or later, it's just a question of time.
I think vokes meant the LGW-WAW/GDN flights.