Wizz Air and Baneasa airport

[Pilotinmydreams]

Having experienced what I term 'The Easyjet shuffle' before I thought i'd comment on my recent flight with Wizz Air from Luton to Baneasa. Obviously it's a Loco flight so I wasn't expecting much in the way of luxury. To be fair, the flight was OK although the legroom on the way out was dreadful (A320 with the plastic flight safety holders). The flight back had far more legroom as the seat backs were the standard type.

What I did notice however, especially at Baneasa was how much of a scrum it is to try and get through the boarding gate. 4 flights leaving pretty much at the same time through an airport with only 4 boarding gates with a very small waiting area, it seemed that the order of the day was to get to the front of the que first no matter who got trampled on. A poor woman who was pregnant got mercilessly shoved around and a couple with a small child and a push chair faired no better.

It was certainly not a pleasant experience and one that i'll probably avoid in the future, choosing to fly into the other airport in Bucharest even if it does cost more and is not quite as conveniently placed.

Just to balance things a little, I thought the cabin crew were very nice and pleasant, even if they wouldn't let the pregnant girl sit in the completely empty extra legroom seats.

[edi_local]

I do like Wizz as they provide some good links to areas where other European LoCos haven't ventured yet, especially in the Balkans.

I used them to come back from BEG in the summer. The boarding experience was horrible, but I'm sure that's more down to BEG airport staff and not the airline. I found Ryanair more civilized than Wizz at the boarding gate, at least FR have some kind of system where Priority goes first and then everyone else ques up. Wizz was just a big crush with no one stepping in to try and control the crowd or bring forward buggies etc. Again though, that is Airport staff and not the airline.

I found their fares to always be pretty low and at an extra £5 on my BEG-LTN flight, I, for once, opted for an extra leg room seat. Compared to some other airlines prices for these seats, Wizz is surprisingly low.

As for the pregnant woman being refused the extra leg room seats...on Wizz I believe that all legroom seats are exit rows (I could be wrong) and these are not allowed to be occupied by pregnant women on any airline I have ever flown with.

[Pilotinmydreams]

I hadn't considered that it might be local airport staff rather than Wizz Air to be honest as i'm not really familiar as to who does what job. Thinking back though i'd say you're probably right there.

With regards to the seat, the extra legroom was row 1 on the starboard side and I don't think there was an exit. I'm happy to stand corrected though.

Incidentally, row 2 was also reserved and had nobody in it. In order to give the girl more space, I moved to that row from my row 3 seat but was told after 10 mins or so that I had to move back or pay 10 Euro. If i'd moved to row 1 i'd have understood having to move back as there was significantly more room and there was a couple sitting in the row who would have had to pay for the priviledge. Row 2 however had no more leg room and no advantage to sitting there (other than getting off the aircraft quicker) so I can't really understand why I was told to move back again.

[davidjohnson6]

Dreams - you would not be the only one to think Baneasa is foul. It simply hasn't got the capacity to handle current passenger numbers. The result is a serios lack of space leading to competition amongst passengers for basic things like a seat or to be seen by immigration officials in a reasonable timeframe.

[badboy1035]

Not to worry about Baneasa, WizzAir will operate out of Otopeni in 2012, since Baneasa will only be for VIP's then.

[davidjohnson6]

badboy - while I was aware of a plan to shift commercial passenger operations from Baneasa to Otopeni, has anything happened to formally confirm this ? Perhaps a Govt official signing some law or order enforcing this, or an announcement from either an airport or airline ?

[Jidi]

Yes, it is official. The ministry of transport has declared that from March 2012 all scheduled flights will be operated from Otopeni. This comes after in 2011 Otopeni and Baneasa merged into the same company and of course, the same administratin.
Wizzair already expresed their concern regarding the higher operating costs of Otopeni, but of course nobody listens.
Tudor Jidav, the executiv director of Romanian Airport Authority declared on Nov. 2011 that they already invited all the operators from Baneasa to start moving their activity on Otopeni.

Most likely it will be later than March, but anyhow they're big chances to happen this year.

Baneasa will be transformed into a VIP flights airport, GA and probably some charter flights.

Living in this country for enough time I can predict that after they move all the operations to Otopeni somebody in the minister of transport will say that Baneasa does not need such a long runway anymore and a 1200-1500m RWY will be enough for the current flights. The land price in that area (north of Bucharest) are about 500-1000 euro/sqm. Will probably see a new neighbourhood there in couple of years :)

[Jidi]

Just as an update, if anyone is still interested, all low-cost operation from Baneasa will be transfered to Otopeni starting 25th of March.

LRBS will become a business flights airport. As far as rumours go the landing fees will increase. It will become a problem for general aviation near Bucharest since LRBS is the only place you can find AVGAS. If now you have to pay a merely 50 Euros for the landing just to get fuel, an increase in the landing fees will definitely become a bigger a problem.

[davidjohnson6]

Further to the previous posts, I note on the ever (un)reliable wikipedia, that all Wizz flights at Baneasa have been marked as ending on 24 March with corresponding start date at Otopeni on 25 March.

I note also that Wizz on their website make no mention of this. Is it an over enthusiastic wikipedia contributor, is the person who updates the WIzz website being a bit slow, or are Wizz currently engaged in "discussions" with someone as to whether this will or won't go ahead ?

[ConstantFlyer]

Things in Romania will happen when they happen. Wizzair is good, but its hands have been tied with ops out of BBU. The infrastructure is not up to handling more than two flights at a time. Even if Wizzair staggered its schedules to avoid a crush, Blue Air flights still added to the congestion in the terminal. The main problems are too few security lanes and too few immigration desks. All this in a very small space. In the olden days, you rarely got more than an An-24 or two leaving at once - far fewer passengers than on 4 A320s or 737s.

The facilities at OTP are far better, both for operators and passengers - but both pay for them, naturally. Expect higher fares as a result.

[Pilotinmydreams]

To be honest I'd rather pay a few more quid for the flight than have to be stuck in that departure lounge again for all that time with my lungs being attacked by the smoke from everyone. I would also have thought it was somewhat of a fire risk as I can't see that everyone would have been able to get out very quickly in an emergency.