Wizz Air has further amended its network in the former Yugoslavia, with new route launches delayed and a number of services temporarily suspended due to travel restrictions and poor demand. Following the short-term cancellation of over a dozen routes from Skopje, Ohrid, Belgrade, Niš, Tuzla, Pristina and Podgorica, the budget airline is making further cuts, mostly in Macedonia. From Skopje, the carrier has temporarily suspended a further three routes - Rome, Venice and Nuremberg. All are expected to resume during the first half of August, with Nuremberg to be temporarily discontinued from July 25 until August 18. From Ohrid, the airline has added Memmingen to its list of cancelled flights with it to resume on August 19.
Due to restrictions imposed by Italy on flights from most of the Western Balkans, Wizz Air’s planned new service from Milan to Pristina, which was to commence today, has been delayed until August 1. On the other hand, the budget carrier has pushed back the resumption of its Milan - Podgorica service until the start of the 2020/2021 winter season on October 25. Flights from Vienna to the Montenegrin capital have also been temporarily suspended until August 1. Elsewhere, Wizz Air will also discontinue flights from Tuzla to Dortmund, with the final service planned for August 1. Operations are expected to resume on October 27.
Wizz Air has delayed the launch of nine new routes from Belgrade for the second time. Originally planned to commence this week, the base expansion was first pushed back until mid-August and has now been postponed until September 1. The airline’s operations from Charleroi to Ljubljana, and its services to Split remain unchanged. The carrier will launch its new year-round flights between Dortmund and Split, as initially planned, on August 1. Further schedule changes remain possible.
It's interesting that Milan-Podgorica is suspended all the way till October.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Tourism is down by like 92% in MNE this year. In Budva right now there are 5.000 tourists compared to like 55.000 last year.
DeleteWell, because Italy banned flights from Montenegro.
DeleteI understand but they banned it from other places too and Wizz plans to resume those as soon as the ban is lifted.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/WWnfPQ0GlbA
DeleteThat's gold! haha
Delete:(
ReplyDeleteI doubt the Italy and Austria flights will be able to resume at the start of August. More likely mid August or early September.
ReplyDeleteSurprised about Basel-Ohrid. Would have expected this would have enough demand fue to Albanian passengers.
ReplyDeleteThere is just no demand at the moment anywhere.
Delete130 planes expected this weekend at SPU. LF at the moment around 80 %.
DeleteSo there is some demand somewhere after all. Northern Adriatic and Istria are at some 60 % of the last year's tourists numbers, and Dalmatia at around 30-40%, which is better than initially expected.
Yes but Istra is full of Slovenes and Italians who do not fly in.
DeleteWizz air is starting Basel-Tirana today
DeleteOhrid - Basel is not cancelled. Memmingen is paused until 18th Aug
DeleteAugust 19 actually.
DeleteBasel-ohrid was not available this morning but they seemed to have put it back.
DeleteShame :(
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy how irresponsibly they behaved from the start. They ambitiously started expanding as if they knew better than all other airlines around Europe. This shows how immature they really are.
ReplyDeleteTheir expansion elsewhere has gone without a problem.
DeleteThey just didn't expect so many irrational, knee-jerk decisions to be made by governments around the EU.
DeleteThey are still announcing new routes on an almost daily basis. I would say 90% are going ahead as normal. The ones that are delayed are those that travel restrictions have been introduced. But they will be launched eventually.
Deletethey are flying half empty at best
DeleteYou would have to really look hard to find an airline flying with over 50% LF.
Delete@Author: Tuzla-Billund is suspended same as Tuzla-Dortmund. Maybe not official but visible on booking site and all my family August tickets got cancelled few days ago.
ReplyDeleteWasn't Tuzla Billund already cut once in the past?
DeleteYou can still buy tickets for Tuzla-Dortmund...
Delete@Anon 09:12,
DeleteYup it was, last Winter if not wrong, which is no surprise vs demand, as majority of the pax off season are diasporas at early or regular retirement who dunno what to spend their money at. Not bad as it preserves the route if it can make it, as I recall 50% LF and tickets down to 20 EUR a day prior the flight.
It was also few days ago cut from 3 to 2 weekly and now fully until ultimo October.
Interesting that besides LCA and BVA and MLA no other routes have been so far cut from BEG.
ReplyDeleteI think you mixed something up. BVA is operating normally - 4 times per week.
DeleteEven more interesting is Nis. Except for Vienna due to the ban, all other routes are operating normally.
DeleteI think you mixed Beuvais with Salzburg. Malta never actually resumed because Malta didn't open until recently.
DeleteWhat do you mean by "cut"? LIS flights were pushed back to September, TRF as well - both my August flights got cancelled.
DeleteHe meant existing flights suspended. The routes that didn't launch yet have been moved.
DeleteSo that's 20 routes cancelled. Hopefully just temporary.
ReplyDelete20 if you don't include routes that were supposed to launch but have been delayed.
DeleteOh wow I didn't realize that the new Dortmund-Split flights are year round.
ReplyDeleteYes, hope it can work out over winter.
DeleteIt's really unfortunate for SKP. Quite a lot of routes.
ReplyDeletewizzair reliable af
ReplyDeleteMost irresponsible company from whole Europa WizzAir. My wife had a ticket Sarajevo-Budapest for July 15. but Hungarian authorities completely forbidden the entrance from Bosnia-Hercegovina right in this day. I informed the WizzAir and answer was...apocalyptic. They said I should to know the rules in every country and to must cancel the flight at least 14 days before departure, even if Hungary forbid the arrival just 15 hours before the departure. Today I have ticket Sarajevo-Bosnia, practically I can depart but I can’t arrive, and they don’t care. Because they send the plane with passengers from Budapest to Sarajevo, and they don’t want to come back empty. The fact the passengers can’t enter in Hungary doesn’t matter which passport they have, WizzAir don’t care because they sell the tickets and they don’t want to refund. Low cost company with even lower behavior. Never ever flight with them
ReplyDeleteThis is also becoming my impression.
DeleteShooting out promotions to collect money, well knowing dozen of their routes from next day will be cancelled over a longer period. Meaning ripping off money by false marketing.
When reaching out to them, you get a standard outsourced robotic reply, hiding behind regulations and their GCC where ever they can get away with it, even in the grey zone.
I supported them for years and had several tickets I didn't use, giving away to them, saying it might help to substain routes in our region.
But to sell you something that won't last next day and you need to fight for your money and rights, is no go and will be reported.
I encourage everyone to do so, each country has organisations taking actions on false marketing etc.
@Unknown, how does Wizz's response to your situation differ from any other airline out there? Every single one would've said the same.
Delete@10.10 that might work in an EU - state
DeleteAir Serbia is similar.
DeleteAs we all know Germany forbade passengers from Serbia to visit Germany for touristic purpose, but they simply do not care and just say that they can change departure date for some other date in 2020 with possibility to pay additional feel for another flying class, if applicable.
The fact that in the terms and conditions stands that in the case of visa refusal they pay all the money back is not valid for them because "in this case no visa rejection happened". And they ignore that even worse thing happened - Germany forbade ALL passengers from Serbia to enter Germany. Visa rejection is a measure to stop certain person to enter Germany and in that case they pay the money back but if all nation is forbidden to enter Germany well than it is not a reason for paying back the money for the ticket.
Shame.
Last anon true, and everyones EU origin flights are subject to that. But EU is also interested to hear what is going on. Don't be foled by Hungarian circus actors. You can get away with a lot but not everything and everywhere.
DeleteWhy in the world did you even buy a ticket from Sarajevo to BUD?
DeleteAnon 10.26
DeleteYou had the opportunity to bash JU on yesterday's OSL topic, no need to bring them up every day no matter what the topic of discussion is. Anyway, JU refunded all tickets to those who didn't want a voucher.
Anon 11:41
DeleteIf you only knew how wrong you were...
I am FF with JU and I really like to fly with them, but I wonder if you couldn't or did not want to think bit further than "bashing JU". This kind of comments sound like a very broken record and just decrease the credibility of the person who placed it.
And if you just tried to understand my post you would see that despite Germany forbade people from Serbia as tourists to enter that country Air Serbia did not cancel their flights to Germany.
And the vouchers or refund are possible only in the cases when JU cancels their flight. And it is NOT the case here.
I hope you are ashamed of your post now. At least a bit.
They don't have to cancel flights just because people can't come for tourism. No one canceled flights between Serbia and Germwny, not Air Serbia, not Lufthansa and not Wizz Air. So it's your own problem.
DeleteOk, now it seems the topic with vouchers or refund has been understood. I am glad.
DeleteDo you know that they make refund in the case that passenger's visa has been rejected? It is also not their problem.
Of course that they should not cancel the flights if the people can't come for tourism. Who said they should?
They should just make the refund to the people who can't fly as the circumstances for not flying are out of passenger control.
Simple as that.
How interesting! Saying any kind of facts which are negative to JU is now called bashing! Even if you say that you didnt get voucher from JU you will be called JU hater! So you cannot say anything negative to JU? Seems to me like some kind of dictatorship on this blog when you cannont say negative facts about some of the regional airlines.
DeleteYou only have to open any JU topic to read criticism. But today's article has nothing to do with JU.
DeleteExactly, today's topic is about Wizz yet you go on bashing JU for flying to Germany while completely ignoring Wizz Air's flights, you know, the airline which is the topic of discussion today. Coming here every single day and finding ways to throw mud at JU says more about you than anything else. Serbs who are German citizens can travel between the two countries, these flights are there for them as well as for transfers JU carries today.
DeleteHow convenient is to avoid the point of the post for this "bashing" guy. Probably it hurts less so to see the truth.
DeleteAnd again you are wrong about Serbs being German citizens. Even those who are Serbian citizens with permanent residence permit can travel from Serbia to Germany.
How old are you? 18 or less?
They went all in assuming everything will be back to normal from May, then June, then July. It will be a rude awakening as dumping capacity left and right without demand will backfire badly. Soon they will realize they can't finance empty flying forever and huge cuts will follow when the shareholders hold Varadi accountable.
ReplyDeleteWasn't it reported on here that SKP will lose a plane? Let's see how many of these actually come back in the end.
ReplyDeleteWizzAir, like most other airlines, is on freefall.
ReplyDeleteWizz owes me roughly 500 EUR of cancelled tickets.
They promise to refund within max. 2 months, however its been over 4 months and still nothing!
The Belgrade Expansion this year will not happen .
ReplyDeleteIts not Wizzs fault but of all those countries who love to punish the Balkan countries because " they are guilty of spreading Corona all over Europe "
That nonsense makes me to wish the worst for Austria and Italy ...
Numbers speak for themselves:
Deleteactive cases/100.000 pop
I - 20,47
A - 15,12
D - 7,06
SRB - 68,85
MK - 194,25
BIH - 133,34
MNG - 277,33
HR - 29,36
SLO - 13,05
(source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries)
And what about Spain which is closing its borders to Serbs from the 22nd? They are back at 1.000 daily cases in Catalonia yet they are acting all morally superior towards us. Anon 19.46 is absolutely right. Funny thing is that as Spain is closing borders to us France is thinking of doing the same to them. Karma.
DeleteEin is still there
ReplyDelete