Wizzair

[booze]

Cheers dirk85. They are pulling 15 aircraft from various Eastern European bases to support the new bases being opened.

[dirk85]

And by the way, easyJet is not downsizing by 51 planes. Now they have 337 planes in the fleet, and they plan to have 302 at the end of FY21. That's a 12% reduction. They were supposed to have 350+ by the end of 2021. Funny way to put the numbers, but the fleet reduction mentioned in the press release was based on hypothetical future fleet numbers.

[FGE319]

Originally Posted by booze

Cheers dirk85. They are pulling 15 aircraft from various Eastern European bases to support the new bases being opened.

But there are 20-ish coming in the next 2-ish years with few leaving before 2022. First A320NEO delivered this morning.

NEW ROUTES FROM TIRANA Are you ready to say yes again to travelling? Tirana, we're finally here for you! From the 1st of July we're taking you from our newly opened base to Paris Beauvais, Eindhoven, Berlin, Frankfurt-Hahn, Prague, Rhodes, Bari, Milan and many more places directly!

15 new routes in total, most have been vacated by other airlines in the past few years, others have large Albanian diaspora, likely 2 planes, so this looks a really sensible set of routes.

[Kefuddle]

Originally Posted by dirk85

And by the way, easyJet is not downsizing by 51 planes. Now they have 337 planes in the fleet, and they plan to have 302 at the end of FY21. That's a 12% reduction. They were supposed to have 350+ by the end of 2021. Funny way to put the numbers, but the fleet reduction mentioned in the press release was based on hypothetical future fleet numbers.

They are probably going to get rid of all the lease aircraft in the very short term, which would be commensurate with the immediate need for the 30% reduction in staff, assuming they are planning about a 25% productivity increase for the remaining crew. Then the remaining deliveries will build the fleet back up to 300 for the end of 2021 with the plan to park many of them ready for gradual increases in demand from 2022 to 2023.

[FGE319]

I flew somewhere between 820 and 830 hours last year. I'm not sure how you can squeeze an extra 25% out of that. In June/July this year definitely it's possible, but after this a little bit of a problem.....

[booze]

Significant pay reduction for all and forced moving bases for those who are selected for LCA/MXP/TIA communicated as a great opportunity by management... Needless to say more...

[PilotLZ]

Was there a second round of pay reduction? I thought that it had already been announced as early as March.

[seventhreedriver]

Originally Posted by booze

Significant pay reduction for all and forced moving bases for those who are selected for LCA/MXP/TIA communicated as a great opportunity by management... Needless to say more...

It breaks my heart to say this, but we are still “overpaid” in this climate. At any given day, there are at least 10 as qualified pilot willing to
take my job for half my salary. Loosing around 15% of my pay (until the end of the financial year only, by the way) and maybe having to relocate to LCA (in the summer, soooo bad) when most of my friends are either redundant or on unpaid leave is not too bad. By I am always the “cup is half day full” guy...

[TBSC]

Also the final report about the fiscal year ending on 31MAR is out. Profit of 345 million euros (up 29.9%), 40 million passengers (up 15,8%), cash of 1496 million euros reported.

However the deputy CEO (EVP/Managing Director of Wizz Air Hungary Stephen Jones) is leaving, 64 million euros lost of fuel hedging, fleet growth is cut back with seven aircraft for this year (compared to the last one published in January, eight 321neos and six 320neos to be delivered, four 320ceos to be returned). Also MAY traffic statistic is out today, 6% of the capacity operated with 61% load factor (mind you, the load factor Wizz reports is not the actual number of passengers boarded - as that would be around 10% or less - but seats sold), revenue -95.8% compared to MAY2019.

[TBSC]

Originally Posted by seventhreedriver

It breaks my heart to say this, but we are still “overpaid” in this climate. At any given day, there are at least 10 as qualified pilot willing to
take my job for half my salary. Loosing around 15% of my pay (until the end of the financial year only, by the way) and maybe having to relocate to LCA (in the summer, soooo bad) when most of my friends are either redundant or on unpaid leave is not too bad. By I am always the “cup is half day full” guy...

How about moving to Tirana for the summer?

[PilotLZ]

Fleet growth is cut back with seven aircraft for this year (compared to the last one published in January, eight 321neos and six 320neos to be delivered, four 320ceos to be returned).

I couldn't quite work out what the expected fleet growth was. 14 deliveries and 4 returns equals a net growth of 10 aircraft. Wasn't that estimated to be 8 aircraft, with 22 deliveries and 14 returns not too long ago? Or did they decide to defer a part of the deliveries and instead keep some of the existing aircraft for slightly longer?

[Dr. Marlboro]

It should be 14 aircraft added to fleet by June 2021, so I think it is 22 coming in and 8 going out.

[TBSC]

According to the financial report about the last quarter the planned number of aircraft at the end of this FY (March 2021) was 138. In this report it's reduced with seven to 131 (net growth of 10).

[Dr. Marlboro]

The plan is to be 135 in June 2021, so sounds about right

[PilotLZ]

Interesting insight. Thank you, HSBC. And what about capacity? Is full utilisation of said 131 aircraft also expected by the end of the FY or are they going to fly a more loose schedule and just have spare capacity available for whenever new opportunities come up?

[TBSC]

It does not say as no reliable forecast can be given. It does however say:

"In addition, the Directors have also modelled a severe but plausible downside scenario based on a minimal number of flights in April, May and June 2020. For the remainder of F21 only 60 per cent of capacity would be flown, improving to 75 per cent of capacity flown for the remainder of the going concern period from April to June 2021. In this scenario, the Group is still forecasting significant liquidity throughout this period.Due to the level of uncertainty in the projections and the varying patterns of how the operations of the business could emerge from the pandemic, the Directors also assessed the cash burn rate of the business in the event of a full grounding of the airline for the going concern period. The Directors concluded that, due to a combination of a strong balance sheet going into the pandemic and a low monthly cash burn rate, the business would have sufficient liquidity for more than 12 months even if it remained grounded over that time."

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/...sults/14562936

[Kirks gusset]

Here is a PR 3rd June:

https://centreforaviation.com/member...d-lowes-526841

[vlieger]

This is going to down well amongst pilots and cabin crew...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b...cash-rrrr62v05

Wizz Air has handed its management share bonuses potentially worth millions of pounds, despite making a thousand staff redundant, using the government’s furlough scheme and borrowing hundreds of millions from the Bank of England’s emergency funding line.

The airline allotted almost 200,000 share options to bosses as part of their long-term incentive plans. The final number of shares they will be able to cash in depends on the company’s performance over the next three years.

Jozsef Varadi, 54, chief executive, is in line for the biggest payout. He could be awarded 42,526 shares at present worth about £1.5 million. Diederik Pen, 51, the chief operations officer, could receive stock worth £850,000 based on last night’s closing price.

[Pearlharbour]

It is really sad to see how management in Wizzair deal with the crisis. In one hand they fired 1000 people (265 pilots) in other hand they keep their liquity and open bases constantly, receiving new airplanes but the company cut salaries by 25%, put random rosters, pushing people to move non popular bases and threating them etc etc etc
And now the share bonuses of millions of pounds. So is quite clear what is the strategy of the company. Make shareholders richer and downgrade salaries.

I don´t know until what point it makes sense for a pilot of western Europe to go their bases on Eastern Europe with a random roster, fear policy and, for example a Captain, make around 4000 Euros flying 4 sectors and manage hight levels of fatigue.

Time will say if they can expand treating people in this way. I think there is some limits that a pilot can/should not accept. Wizzair is the case.

[PilotLZ]

Originally Posted by Pearlharbour

I don´t know until what point it makes sense for a pilot of Western Europe to go their bases on Eastern Europe with a random roster, fear policy and, for example a Captain, make around 4000 Euros

Nobody's saying that pay at WZZ is at the same level as in Western European airlines. It's at the level of airlines in the region where the majority of their bases are located. And, having some idea of what the industry in that part of the world is like, I can't see too many better alternatives for the locals unless they are willing to relocate. Eastern European countries have far smaller legacy carriers than Western European countries. Most of the airlines there are ACMI carriers, mostly flying in the summer on behalf of someone else who needs cheap seasonal capacity. The pay in said ACMI companies is not exactly great, many of them operate some of the oldest aircraft in Europe and job security is almost non-existent as it depends entirely on finding a customer to fly for (and that will be especially hard for some time, given the surplus of capacity in pretty much every airline in the world these days). And also, don't forget that ACMI means being away from home for extended periods of time. So, no wonder that there's never a shortage of applications for Wizz air and Buzz alike. For many Eastern Europeans who want to fly commercially and still remain in their home countries, those are often the best options.