Birmingham: Wizz Air Flights, New Routes & Schedule Updates

[Ray Finkle]

The outbound seat map for today's inaugural Wroclaw is now showing only 8 seats left, 96% :good:

Tomorrows Budapest has a similar load.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Tomorrow's seat maps.

Birmingham to Poznan 96%

Birmingham to Warsaw 95%

Birmingham to Wroclaw 92%

 

[Ray Finkle]

Changes for the summer period

Budapest - Now 3x weekly Tue, Thur and Sat (all 19:30 arrival)
Warsaw - Moves to Sun and Wed (20:45) for April then switches to 3x weekly in May, Sat (07:35), Tue and Thur (07:25)
Wroclaw - Still Mon and Fri (20:50)
Poznan - Moves to Tue and Sat (21:15)
Sofia - Sun and Wed (20:55)
Bucharest - Sun and Wed from 22nd May (07:05)

 

[Ray Finkle]

An interesting article about the dynamics of Ryanair and Wizz Air in Eastern Europe.

Some of it may be relevant to BHX as we hopefully see expansion in this market over the coming years.

http://www.routesonline.com/news/29...tral-and-eastern-europe/?highlight=birmingham

 

[Ray Finkle]

Luton has appeared as a destination again although I can't see any flights loaded as yet.

The last time this happened it was the A321 press flight but I'm struggling to think what this could be. It may be that it's just a glitch with the new website but there is nothing similar for other UK airports.

 

[Brum X]

Maybe we have a new destination to follow shortly ????

 

[Ray Finkle]

Don't know.

It's still only on the mobile site and not on the main one, they normally appear there the day after. It may just be a glitch with the new one 😵

In other news Bucharest starts on Sunday.

The seat maps currently show Bucharest - Birmingham at 91% with Birmingham - Bucharest 83%. Blue Air are also showing as a 738 for the next few Saturdays so it's good to see that they haven't been affected.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Sofia goes up to 3x weekly from December 22nd.

It moves from Friday and Monday to Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday.

All three flights are on the A321.

A nice response to Ryanair.

 

[Paulsstrange]

Excellent every little helps, and shows how good the forward bookings must be ....

 

[IanFarquharson]

But Warsaw is reducing to 2pw for the Winter but both A321's

 

[Paulsstrange]

Oh well, but on both routes with Ryan air just look at what we will have when 12 months ago we had neither routes at all 😉

 

[nwoody2001]

An idea of how far BHX has come with regard to connections to eastern Europe. Still a lot more opportunities but still a great achievement. Comparing Jan 2015 with Jan 2017

Bulgaria
Sofia

• RYR 2015 (-) 2017 (3x 738)
  
• WZZ 2015 (-) 2017 (3x 321)

Hungary
Budapest

• WZZ 2015 (-) 2017 (3x 321)

Lithuania
Kaunas

• RYR 2015 (2x 738) 2017 (-)

Vilnius

• RYR 2015 (-) 2017 (2x 738)

Poland
Bydgoszcz

• RYR 2015 (3x 738) 2017 (3x 738)

Gdansk

• RYR 2015 (2x 738) 2017 (2x 738)

Katowice

• RYR 2015 (2x 738) 2017 (2x 738)

Krakow

• RYR 2015 (2x 738) 2017 (2x 738)

Poznan

• WZZ 2015 (-) 2017 (2x 320)

Warsaw

• RYR 2015 (-) 2017 (3x 738)
  
• WZZ 2015 (-) 2017 (2x 321)

Wroclaw

• WZZ 2015 (-) 2017 (2x 320)
  

Romania
Bucharest

• BMS 2015 (-) 2017 (3x 738)
  
• WZZ 2015 (-) 2017 (2x 320)

TOTALS

2015 - 3,960 seats pw
11x flights
(11x 738)

2017 - 13,040 seats pw (up 9,080 seats / +329%)
34x flights
(20x 738)
(6x 320)
(8x 321)



2015 3,960pax 2017 13,040pax +9,080pax (+329%)

 

[Ray Finkle]

That is impressive growth.

Bucharest has had a third weekly flight added over the Christmas period, so from 16th December to 6th January it is 3x weekly (Mon, Wed and Fri).

Along with the extra Warsaw flights it'll be a busy few weeks.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Bucharest starts tomorrow and the seat maps currently show almost sold out inbound with an 88% load factor outbound, the second flight on Wednesday also looks good. As said above Bucharest goes 3x weekly over Christmas but then stays on Mondays and Fridays, I'd say it's looking good for 3x weekly for S17.

Some seat maps over the weekend

Today

Budapest to Birmingham 84%

Birmingham to Budapest 93%

Poznan to Birmingham 93%

Birmingham to Poznan 93%

Sunday

Bucharest to Birmingham 96%

Birmingham to Bucharest 89%

Sofia to Birmingham 96%

Birmingham to Sofia 88%

Monday

Wroclaw to Birmingham 95%

Birmingham to Wroclaw 84%

 

[Bhx_fifteen]

Wow, those are some really impressive figures. Thanks Ray. It really makes you wonder how these services have only just become available when you see such impressive figures! Hopefully Wizz are as overwhelmed with the response from BHX as we are and are looking at future growth 👍

 

[richard winterbourn]

Impressive seat map statistics Ray. What would be interesting would be to see similar statistics for Wizzair flights from other UK airports. Matching those against BHX would surely give an indication as to how satisfied the airline is and, perhaps, an indicator as to the possibility of future growth.

 

[Ray Finkle]

It sure is impressive. I had my concerns about Bucharest having two airlines, especially with it never being served before. Blue Air are consistently using their 180 seat 738/A320 and have added frequency for winter and Wizz are almost sold out and have also added winter flights, so early indications are that it's doing well.

Impressive seat map statistics Ray. What would be interesting would be to see similar statistics for Wizzair flights from other UK airports. Matching those against BHX would surely give an indication as to how satisfied the airline is and, perhaps, an indicator as to the possibility of future growth.

Good idea. I'm off out in a minute but I'll have a look through tonight whilst Mrs Finkle is engrossed in BGT.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Impressive seat map statistics Ray. What would be interesting would be to see similar statistics for Wizzair flights from other UK airports. Matching those against BHX would surely give an indication as to how satisfied the airline is and, perhaps, an indicator as to the possibility of future growth.

Good idea. I'm off out in a minute but I'll have a look through tonight whilst Mrs Finkle is engrossed in BGT.

I've already had a look at Bristol with the next four rotations thus:

Saturday

Katowice-Bristol 91.1%
Bristol-Katowice 90%

Sunday

Sofia-Bristol 87.8%
Bristol-Sofia 89.4%

Warsaw Chopin-Bristol 87.8%
Bristol-Warsaw Chopin 91.1%

Monday

Kosice-Bristol 78.3%
Bristol-Kosice 79.4%

Not quite as good as the BHX figures, especially Kosice, but of course these are only snapshots over a short period and I haven't been able to compare fares.

The Kosice route is the one that seems to be struggling a bit. It was reduced to once weekly from 2 x weekly for part of the winter.

Wizz seems to have developed its network at BHX more than at BRS so it may well be that BHX returns are better overall in the longer period.

 

[thunderchild]

It's quite remarkable considering this time last year Wizz hadn't announced anything from BHX. In the space eleven months six routes have been launched with increases in both capacity and frequency already underway.

I hope there is more to come.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Many thanks TLY, some decent numbers there and, Kosice aside, all above the Wizz network average.