Birmingham: Wizz Air Flights, New Routes & Schedule Updates

[Ray Finkle]

It's been a while since we've had Ljubljana, I think the last time was with Adria but cannot remember when?

 

[Daza]

Four capital cities added ex BHX in four months :drinks: They have an interesting list of bases lets hope these six destinations do well and I'm certain we can expect more. :good:
Daza

 

[Ray Finkle]

I had a look at the seat maps towards the end of last week and tomorrows flight to Poznan showed a worryingly low number of pre-booked seats, probably less than 50%. I've just had a quick look and it's now a more respectable 75% outbound. Inbound only has one seat available.

Tomorrows Warsaw is showing 92% inbound and 80% outbound.

 

[nwoody2001]

Seems like our new BHX-SOF route comes with another little sweetener too.... BHX-BUD is going from 2x weekly to 3x weekly! Wizz seem to be happy!!!

Wizz Air Announces New Route From Birmingham to Sofia
11th January 2016

Wizz Air, the largest low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe, today announced a new route from Birmingham to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

The route will commence on 28 March and will be operated with two weekly flights on Mondays and Fridays. The new service is Wizz Air’s sixth low-fare route from Birmingham, along with Bucharest, Budapest, Poznan, Warsaw and Wroclaw.

With this new service, WIZZ is now offering low-fare routes to four countries from Birmingham.

Tickets on Wizz Air’s new Sofia service are already on sale and can be booked at wizzair.com from GBP 28.49 one-way including taxes and non-optional charges.

Tamara Mshvenieradze, Corporate Communications Manager at Wizz Air, said: “We are thrilled to announce a sixth route from Birmingham Airport, one of our eight UK airports, today. Birmingham is now connected with four countries on WIZZ’s low-fares: Hungary, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria we look forward to a fruitful partnership with Birmingham Airport as well as to seeing many happy passengers on board.”

William Pearson, Birmingham Airport's Aviation Development Director, said: "This news has really got 2016 off to a great start. We're very excited about Wizz Air's growth at Birmingham and delighted to see Sofia being added to the growing route network available from Birmingham. Having launched only in September with flights to Warsaw and Budapest, the carrier has since launched flights to Poznan and will be operating to Wroclaw, Bucharest and Sofia from the summer, as well as increasing services to the popular city of Budapest from two to three times weekly.

"WIZZ is recognising the opportunities available from the Midlands region and opening up many brand new destinations, which are proving to be very popular with those visiting relatives and enjoying short leisure breaks."

https://www.birminghamairport.co.uk/med ... -to-sofia/

So.....

Warsaw - 3x weekly
Budapest - 3x weekly
Bucharest - 2x weekly
Poznan - 2x weekly
Wroclaw - 2x weekly
Sofia - 2x weekly

Total = 14x weekly departures / 6 routes!!!!

 

[Ray Finkle]

Very good to hear, definitely a nice bonus.

2016 has started well with two extra flights from Turkish, two extra flights from Norwegian and a new route and an increase from Wizz 🙂

Lets hope it continues :good:

 

[Brum X]

Very good to hear, definitely a nice bonus.

2016 has started well with two extra flights from Turkish, two extra flights from Norwegian and a new route and an increase from Wizz 🙂

Lets hope it continues :good:

BHX is rocking, let the good times continue.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Budapest now showing 3x weekly Tue, Thur and Sat.

BUD 17:50 → BHX 19:30
BHX 20:00 → BUD 23:35

 

[richard winterbourn]

Really good to see Bud move up to three weekly, but when i look at the arrival times there I can't help thinking that all the pax must be Hungarian. Who would want to try and get to a hotel or hostel well after midnight?

If the arrival times were earlier I, for one, would book tomorrow....

 

[Ray Finkle]

Sofia has also changed to Sun and Wed, so we now have:

Budapest - Sat, Tue, Thur
Warsaw - Sat, Tue, Thur
Poznan - Sat, Tue
Bucharest - Sun, Wed
Sofia - Sun, Wed
Wroclaw - Mon, Fri

Poznan is sitting nicely for a third Thursday flight to be added :smile:

 

[Daza]

I think WIzz is a great addition to the BHX portfolio of airlines. They obviously see the untapped potential of 2.8million people just in the West mids who until September had little option when wanting to travel to Eastern Europe. :drinks:
I am very tempted to book BUD my brother is Eurofleet CC for BA ex LHR (he used to work for BACon at Brum) and he says its a great city his favourite in Europe.
Lets hope these good news stories keep going! Anyone heard any news on the China flights for 2016?
Daza

 

[Ray Finkle]

It also means that Sofia now starts on March 27th, so with that, Iberia and the start of Emirates A380 it'll be a busy Sunday.

They obviously see the untapped potential of 2.8million people just in the West mids who until September had little option when wanting to travel to Eastern Europe.

What occurred to me is that two of our new routes (one previously never served before) go straight in with the highest frequencies to Eastern Europe.

Prague - 5x weekly
Bucharest - 4x weekly
Dubrovnik - 3x weekly
Budapest - 3x weekly
Warsaw - 3x weekly
Bratislava - 3x weekly
Bydgoszcz - 3x weekly
Gdansk - 2x weekly
Krakow - 2x weekly
Katowice - 2x weekly
Vilnius - 2x weekly
Poznan - 2x weekly
Wroclaw - 2x weekly
Sofia - 2x weekly

I've not included the usual charter flights to Bourgas, Pula etc.

Anyone heard any news on the China flights for 2016?

I think we'll hear something before the end of Feb 😉

 

[Aviador]

Is Sunday going to be *the* day to visit BHX then?

 

[Ray Finkle]

Sunday will be a good day this summer with Emirates, PIA, Qatar, Turkmenistan (if they use a 777) and Air India all having flights, although it could turn out to be that Saturday is equally as interesting. We shall see :s_yes

 

[Aviador]

I'll need to check the diary and maybe pay a visit this summer.

 

[nwoody2001]

It also means that Sofia now starts on March 27th, so with that, Iberia and the start of Emirates A380 it'll be a busy Sunday.

They obviously see the untapped potential of 2.8million people just in the West mids who until September had little option when wanting to travel to Eastern Europe.

What occurred to me is that two of our new routes (one previously never served before) go straight in with the highest frequencies to Eastern Europe.

Prague - 5x weekly
Bucharest - 4x weekly
Dubrovnik - 3x weekly
Budapest - 3x weekly
Warsaw - 3x weekly
Bratislava - 3x weekly
Bydgoszcz - 3x weekly
Gdansk - 2x weekly
Krakow - 2x weekly
Katowice - 2x weekly
Vilnius - 2x weekly
Poznan - 2x weekly
Wroclaw - 2x weekly
Sofia - 2x weekly

I've not included the usual charter flights to Bourgas, Pula etc.

Anyone heard any news on the China flights for 2016?

I think we'll hear something before the end of Feb 😉

Thanks for compiling this Ray, what is interesting that in summer 2014, it would seem that we had 17x weekly flights eastern Europe, as of summer 2016, BHX will now have an impressive 38x weekly flights.... more than doubling...

However, with Wizz on the game, and by the looks of it being able to fill their flights, it has shown actually how much capacity there is from BHX to eastern Europe. When you look at the list above, it occurs to me that there is extra demand on the following Wizz and Ryanair flights....

Budapest - 3x weekly (3x weekly from GLA, 3x weekly DSA, 35x weekly LTN)

Warsaw - 3x weekly (Similar as above)

Bratislava - 3x weekly (3x weekly from MAN, 4x weekly LTN, 14x weekly STN)

Bydgoszcz - 3x weekly (2x weekly from GLA, 7x weekly STN)

Gdansk - 2x weekly (3x weekly GLA, 3x weekly EDI, 2x weekly MAN, 5x weekly DSA, 7x weekly STN, 20x weekly LTN)

Krakow - 2x weekly (3x weekly EMA, 3x weekly MAN, 4x weekly EDI, 14x weekly STN)

Katowice - 2x weekly (3x weekly GLA, 7x weekly DSA, 14x weekly STN, 21x weekly LTN)

What will be interesting is to see if Ryanair may respond and increase capacity, or will Wizz take them on? To think that that likes of Gdansk, Krakow and Katowice have the same number of weekly flights as Poznan and Sofia is a shock!!!

 

[Ray Finkle]

To me the schedule now looks to be set up in a way that allows for frequency increases.

Poznan could easily see a Thursday flight added.
Bucharest has been rumoured to be in line for an increase as it's apparently selling well so a Friday flight could be slotted in.
If Sofia does well then it could also see a Friday flight added in the future.
Wroclaw is the only one left now with just Mon and Fri.

I'd say Gdansk and Katowice are definitely in line for some more capacity, both are substantial bases for Wizz so it will be interesting to see what happens between them and Ryanair.

In the past Ryanair have consistently seen load factor percentages in the high 90's to Eastern Europe so it's about time we had more :smile:

 

[Ray Finkle]

Looking at the seat maps for tomorrows flights.

Poznan 92% inbound, 81% outbound

Warsaw 86% inbound, 80% outbound

Good figures for what is traditionally one of the quietest times of the year.

 

[nwoody2001]

indeed, a great example of how popular destinations which may not be well known in the uk can be to BHX. proof if ever it was needed that there is an unserved demand for people wanting to fly into BHX

 

[richard winterbourn]

In my ignorance i generally thought that inbound and outbound flights generally balance each other out ie 180 pax flying from BHX to say FAO would mean that, barring accidents etc, 180 pax would return.

But with the new Wizz flights into BHX the inbound passenger numbers always seem much higher than the outbound. Could this be due to the fact that a proportion of the pax are, in fact, people who are arriving on a one-way ticket, ie to settle here and find work? It might explain the difference.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

In my ignorance i generally thought that inbound and outbound flights generally balance each other out ie 180 pax flying from BHX to say FAO would mean that, barring accidents etc, 180 pax would return.

But with the new Wizz flights into BHX the inbound passenger numbers always seem much higher than the outbound. Could this be due to the fact that a proportion of the pax are, in fact, people who are arriving on a one-way ticket, ie to settle here and find work? It might explain the difference.

Same seems to apply on the Wizz Bristol routes. Like you I find it strange as one would think that most travellers would fly both ways.