Wizz Air’s CEO has a reminder for cost-aware jet-setters still deciding whether sacrificing their comfort and enjoyment on a cramped seven-hour flight is worth the cheap tickets: if you want to have fun, make sure you come prepared.
The Hungarian budget airline unveiled its new A321 XLR light-body aircraft last week. It can carry passengers on journeys of up to eight hours.
Wizz Air’s first route using the Airbus will take passengers from London Gatwick to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on a seven-hour flight from March next year.
The flights, priced at £134.99, will have the same perks as Wizz Air’s shorter pan-European flights, or more accurately, a lack thereof.
Reclining seats won’t be coming to Wizz Air’s longer routes, while legroom will remain limited, leaving prospective passengers wincing about newfound levels of discomfort.
Furthermore, Wizz Air isn’t planning to follow other long-haul providers by offering free perks like meals, drinks, or on-screen entertainment.
Instead, Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Váradi says, passengers must bring their own entertainment.
“If you want to have more fun, you have to create the fun for yourself,” Váradi told Bloomberg. “It’s not going to be us who create it.”
Váradi pointed out that any perks would add to Wizz Air’s costs by having to pay for the items and ship them around. That could hurt Wizz’s USP of offering flights much cheaper than their long-haul competitors.
“When you take a legacy carrier and you get a coffee for free, this is probably your most expensive cappuccino in your life,” he said. “We don’t want to do that.”
Announcing the new route last week, Váradi was challenged on whether seven hours might be a bridge too far for his cost-sensitive customers, who might not be prepared to stomach that level of discomfort.
“Look back 15-20 years ago, I thought three hours would test passenger tolerance,” Váradi responded.
“I just think that economics are so crucial to people… that when you take a light body aircraft of any kind, and you take economy versus what most people do, you sacrifice some level of comfort.
“You are not on a flatbed. You suffer the pain if you wish for the economic benefits that you are deriving from the transaction,” he added.
