My sampling of low-cost-carriers in Europe continues with a flight on Wizz Air.
I may regret it, but sometimes ultra low-cost-carriers are too good of a deal to pass up. When we are talking sub-tw0 hour flights, I really don’t need much legroom and certainly don’t need a meal or drinks onboard.
Then again, I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about Wizz Air, the Hungarian-based carrier with the motto, Now we can all fly. Horror stories tend to be exaggerated, but I had one client who told me he was stranded for two days and Wizz Air offered no other viable alternatives. I suppose that is the risk you take when you fly a budget carrier, especially when it does not operate daily flights to your destination. In some ways, you always get what you pay for.
These were my choices, by the way — it’s not like I could escape a budget carrier if I wanted to fly nonstop:
It seemed that Wizz Air was the far better choice, both based upon departure time and price. In fact, it was a no-brainer. Now the question, the hope, the wish…is that it simply runs on time.
If you’ve flown Wizz Air before, has it worked out okay for you? Any tips?
Why do you doubt that it runs on time? Wizzair is a great lowcost, for short flights particularly. Anything above 2 hours – and the seat really feels tight. For 2+ hours flights i’d recommend to purchase extra legroom seat.
And 51$ is actually very expensive… 10-20$ is the normal price for the route.
I only flew it once, eastern Europe to northern Europe, and they were on-time, personable, professional and the FAs were young and pretty (as they should be). Because of my height they asked if I would like to be seated in the exit row, which I appreciated. The croissant was nothing to write home about but every other aspect of the airline was superb (from my admittedly minuscule experience with them).
Amazing what we put up with in the US, from both LCCs and legacies.
No worries, Wizz Air is not significantly different from other European LCCs. You can have a miserable day with any airline, but most of the time it’s fine. I actually saw business people use Wizz Air regularly when the route was convenient.
I miss when LX operated out of Basel.
You could check the flight history on Flightradar if you’re nervous.
I guess the screenshot only represents the difference between the two carrier’s prices, and you didn’t actually booked it throuh an aggregator, on any OTA. European LCCs are always 5-8EUR cheaper to buy on their own website, than on any OTA. Never book throuh an OTA if you’re flying lowcost.
I booked directly through Wizz Air website.
Welcome to Warsaw! I am based here, so flew Wizz Air a couple of times when the full service airlines charged more than EUR 200 for an intra-Europe 2-hour flight… My recent flight with them was from Vienna to Warsaw, that was slightly delayed. In Feb I flew with them from Warsaw to Luton, and that was absolutely fine, punctual and safe. The only disadvantage in the case of Warsaw is you are always bussed to the terminal, but that’s not a big issue if you are not travelling with a large family or wheelchair. The price is reasonable for onboard food and drinks too. During low season someone I know flew from Warsaw to TLV for EUR 30 return, so their pricing can be really attractive.