Katowice

A bit of positive news amongst the current gloom at BRS. Wizz's winter timetable for 2019-2020 is now available and shows the BRS-KTW bookable at the customary 2 x weekly (Tue and Sat).
 
I’m not sure what has happened to Wizz and Bristol. From 4 routes to just the 1 which given the awful timings I am surprised it’s still operating. There is big potential in Eastern Europe but somehow Wizz doesn’t seem interested.
 
If only the Airport could encourage some growth from Wizz...
I’m not sure what has happened to Wizz and Bristol. From 4 routes to just the 1 which given the awful timings I am surprised it’s still operating. There is big potential in Eastern Europe but somehow Wizz doesn’t seem interested.
Loads on Warsaw Chopin and Sofia were generally very high, even with Warsaw competing against Ryanair's Warsaw Modlin which itself maintained its extremely high load factor in the face of Wizz competition. It can only be assumed that yields were either disappointing or better elsewhere.

Kosice was the one that struggled a bit but it was improving noticeably when axed. Probably more to do with Kosice as all Wizz routes to that airport have now been axed except Luton. Wizz even tried Kosice-Tel Aviv but that didn't last more than a season.

At least BRS still has a Warsaw presence with Ryanair's route to the slightly out-of-the-way Modlin, and easyJet and Ryanair now compete on Sofia but in the ski season only which also has a weekly ski season charter flight with Enter Air.
 
I happened to look at FR24 just now and found the Katowice flight this evening is an A321. A look at recent flights and the next couple also shows an A321.

I must admit that I've not paid much attention to this route for ages. Is it now meant to be an A321 route all the time?
 
An A321 has operated the BRS - KTW route on every flight since the beginning of April, so I assume it was a planned upgrade.
Wizz Air currently has 5x A320s and 2x A321s based at KTW, so one might conclude that BRS getting an A321 a good sign the route is doing well!
Thanks, Severn. Let's hope so.
 
An A321 has operated the BRS - KTW route on every flight since the beginning of April, so I assume it was a planned upgrade.
Wizz Air currently has 5x A320s and 2x A321s based at KTW, so one might conclude that BRS getting an A321 a good sign the route is doing well!
Just saw the A321 this evening passing south of my house on final approach a couple of minutes ago..
 
I see wizz has just announced a big entry into Southend this morning. Any likelihood we will see any expansion again from wizz at brs ?
 
The Southend announcement might be to take a bit of pressure off Luton.It must be a night mare in Luton at times with Easyjet and Ryanair in the mix.If I remember correct Wizz have rocked up in Brum fairly big.The brum airport could affect BRS. Wizz cut 2 routes from BRS back along and have stuck at just the 1 route from BRS.They have also more routes into Doncaster and Liverpool airports.The UK airports Wizz serve have all had extra routes added except BRS. With allthats gone on in the UK I would say not much of Wizz expansion in BRS, now with that in mind Southend got routes with no hint of that. I hope im wrong saying no Wizz extra routes,as strange things happen in airlines and routes.
 
If Wizz wanted to operate more routes at Bristol I'm sure they would.
They either can't get the yields that they want, can make better yields with the aircraft elsewhere or may feel they didn't get the support from Bristol that they wanted. I wouldn't be surprised if they are being paid to operate into Southend or at least been given free landing and handling fees.
 
I see wizz has just announced a big entry into Southend this morning. Any likelihood we will see any expansion again from wizz at brs ?
The Southend announcement might be to take a bit of pressure off Luton.It must be a night mare in Luton at times with Easyjet and Ryanair in the mix.If I remember correct Wizz have rocked up in Brum fairly big.The brum airport could affect BRS. Wizz cut 2 routes from BRS back along and have stuck at just the 1 route from BRS.They have also more routes into Doncaster and Liverpool airports.The UK airports Wizz serve have all had extra routes added except BRS. With allthats gone on in the UK I would say not much of Wizz expansion in BRS, now with that in mind Southend got routes with no hint of that. I hope im wrong saying no Wizz extra routes,as strange things happen in airlines and routes.

Wizz had four routes at BRS at one time with Katowice the only one now remaining.

Kosice (Slovakia) operated from 2015 to 2017 and was the worst performing in terms of passenger loads. It was a strange choice and Kosice now only has one Wizz route (Luton) having had several at one time and a Wizz base that was closed last year.

Sofia operated from 2016 to 2017 and generally had very good monthly loads, as did Warsaw Chopin (WAW) that also operated from 2016 to 2017.

The axing of the Warsaw Chopin route has given rise to one of those airline passenger numbers phenomena that are sometimes difficult to explain. In 2017 Wizz carried 28,607 passengers between BRS and WAW against Ryanair that carried 73,841 between BRS and Warsaw Modlin (WMI). Yet in 2018 when there was no Wizz service Ryanair carried 71,276 between BRS and WMI. What happened to the 28,000 odd who used WAW the previous year?

It looks as though Jerry's explanation is probably correct. Despite good loads (except Kosice and even they weren't disastrous) the yield was not good enough or better yields could be obtained elsewhere, yet Ryanair seems happy with Poland (for the most part) and the likes of Kaunas (Lithuania) and Bucharest (Romania), and presumably Wizz is happy with Katowice (which Ryanair wasn't - see below).

To an outsider (like me) airline economics might not be one of the black arts but it certainly borders on the arcane. No doubt an insider finds everything perfectly simple and obvious.

Some good news - Katowice is now on sale three times a week for the entire summer 2020 .
This year the Wizz Katowice route has thrown up some strange figures:

January 3191 v 3637 in 2018 down 12%
February 2663 v 3293 down 19%
March 2849 v 3726 down 24%
April 4490 v 3650 up 23%
May 3931 v 3418 up 15%
June 5583 v 3772 up 48%

Despite Ryanair's strong and fairly extensive Polish network from BRS, Katowice is a route they tried more than once before giving up: 2007-2009; 2011-2014. Wizz took it on in 2015.

Ryanair has six Polish routes at BRS, all year-round, and they've been operating for a number of years in that way:

Warsaw Modlin
Gdansk
Krakow (against easyJet)
Poznan
Rzeszow
Wroclaw

Not all Polish routes have succeeded with Ryanair though. Lodz was tried in the summers of 2012 and 2013 and Szcecin (Stettin) in 2008-2009 and 2013-2014. The shortest duration of the lot was Bydgoszcz that began in May 2010 and ended at the end of June 2010 with load factors respectively of 61% and 71% in the two months the route operated. With Ryanair's usual Polish monthly load factors from BRS well into the 90s%, usually in the high 90s, they must have decided very early that Bydgoszcz was never going to make it.
 
The Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company has announced a joint tentative agreement with Wizz to start a low cost airline using Airbus A321s which it hopes to commence operations in the second half of 2020, allowing it to operate low cost flights from Abu Dhabi to Europe and beyond.
Maybe an opportunity for Bristol to get a Middle East route ?
 
I wonder what a budget airline flying to AUH might cost from somewhere like BRS. I flew Etihad from LHR for £300rtn. Once luggage and a meal are added to the price of a budget airline ticket, I wonder if it would be much less than £300 (with, I assume, no in-flight entertainment)?
 
The Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company has announced a joint tentative agreement with Wizz to start a low cost airline using Airbus A321s which it hopes to commence operations in the second half of 2020, allowing it to operate low cost flights from Abu Dhabi to Europe and beyond.
Maybe an opportunity for Bristol to get a Middle East route ?
I think the main reason for a ME route would be for onward connectivity. A point-to-point route would be restrictive in terms of attracting a sufficent number of passengers. Even if there was a code share with Etihad, travelling on a low-cost airline might put off some long haul connecting passengers especially premium ones.
 

Another drunk causing problems, this time on a Wizz Air flight from Katowice as it was on approach to BRS. Has been invited to be a guest of that nice lady, Mrs Windsor, for a couple of months.
 

The local rag comes up with more nonsense today.

In a story about Wizzair's major redundancies it tells us that Wizz currently flies from Bristol to Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

The Bulgarian route (Sofia) and the Slovakian route (Kosice) from BRS were axed by Wizz two years ago. The only Wizz route left at BRS is Katowice so the rag got one out of the three correct.

I fail to see why any so-called newspaper gets factual matters wrong on anything. Opinion and rumour are one thing but indisputable facts are another.
 

The local rag comes up with more nonsense today.

In a story about Wizzair's major redundancies it tells us that Wizz currently flies from Bristol to Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

The Bulgarian route (Sofia) and the Slovakian route (Kosice) from BRS were axed by Wizz two years ago. The only Wizz route left at BRS is Katowice so the rag got one out of the three correct.

I fail to see why any so-called newspaper gets factual matters wrong on anything. Opinion and rumour are one thing but indisputable facts are another.
Even if they didn't know what routes they flew there's still Wikipedia as a reference!
 

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