Wizz Air

[TheLocalYokel]

The Bristol-Katowice route is due to commence on 26 June at 2 x weekly (Mondays and Fridays). For the first time today I saw a city bus (First) carrying a large advert for this service along the side of the vehicle.

 

[conns757]

BRSKTW - 3 weekly from mid July . Added Wednesday !

 

[Marko1]

That's good news. I wonder whether we may see some more routes with wizz air at some point

 

[TheLocalYokel]

That's good news. I wonder whether we may see some more routes with wizz air at some point

Poland seems pretty well covered at BRS with Ryanair (mainly) and easyJet. Whether Wizz would consider a route or two to another country remains to be seen.

The additional weekly rotation (which seems to run until the end of October after which winter reverts to 2 x weekly on Mondays and Fridays according to the web booking engine) suggests that forward bookings are very good.

Ryanair had regular monthly load factors well into the 90s% for the most part when they operated the route and I was very surprised when they gave it up - the yield I suppose.

 

[jfy1999]

I am still confused as to the difference between load and yield :s_dunno

 

[Ray Finkle]

The load is how many bums there are on seats, the load factor will be the percentage of seats that are occupied.

The yield is how much money the flight makes. Income from ticket sales, cargo sales, on board purchases etc minus the operating costs, fuel, crew wages, airport charges etc.

If someone was to start operating flights between say, Bristol and New York, selling seats for £100 return you'd be guaranteed all flights would be pretty much 100% full, but, you would lose huge amounts of money on each flight.

Likewise if the same flight saw seats selling for very high prices then even with a 50% full plane you could make a profit.

Good load factors are encouraging but they don't always equate to a profit.

 

[superking]

the first wizz air flt today. lets hope its the start of something good.
be nice to know how the pax loadings are.when fr operated ktw they always had good loadings,as normal does not guarentee any route as yeild plays a big part these days.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

the first wizz air flt today. lets hope its the start of something good.
be nice to know how the pax loadings are.when fr operated ktw they always had good loadings,as normal does not guarentee any route as yeild plays a big part these days.

The seat selector indicated that the load factor was just over 88% for the first inbound flight this morning.

Ryanair last operated Bristol-Katowice in summer 2013 when the monthly load factors for the route from May to September were respectively, 86%, 87%, 96%, 97%, 88%.

Ryanair's current Polish routes from BRS in May this year saw the following load factors:

Gdansk 95%
Poznan 97%
Warsaw Mod 97%
Wroclaw 97%
Rzeszow 97%

easyJet's Krakow route in May saw a load factor of 95% (on the A319).

But as you point out it's the yield that is the defining figure so far as airlines are concerned.

Incidentally, there is nothing yet on the BRS website about the start of the Wizz Air route today. The airport management is usually right on the ball with publicising things like this.

 

[superking]

off topic slightly. with the airport in the last couple of years, is like the secret service about information and things going on. todays flight as you say nothing,which in my mind news about any thing is a good and cheap advertisement. also those not in the know about any flight if put on tv,radio or newspaper it gets ppl thinking,we should give that a go,and did not know they did that from brs.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

off topic slightly. with the airport in the last couple of years, is like the secret service about information and things going on. todays flight as you say nothing,which in my mind news about any thing is a good and cheap advertisement. also those not in the know about any flight if put on tv,radio or newspaper it gets ppl thinking,we should give that a go,and did not know they did that from brs.

Usually the airport is pretty good at getting out its messages to the local press that invariably publishes the press releases verbatim (cheap copy for the local paper).

I've seen several city buses bearing prominent advertisements about the new Wizz service and there is a large banner on the approach roundabout near the old terminal complex.

Wizz is much better known in countries such as Poland and Hungary than it is in many parts of the UK. I would guess that the majority of passengers on the Polish flights from BRS emanate from there so they'd probably be more aware of Wizz than British people contemplating a trip to Poland.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Just checked the seat selector for tomorrow morning's outbound from BRS to KTW and it shows just six available seats which is a load factor of nearly 97%.

For a new carrier to BRS this must be considered a good sign, albeit Ryanair and easyJet see these sorts of loads at BRS on their Polish routes most of the time in summer.

 

[Marko1]

I wonder whether we may see some more routes from wizz air. I have to say it was a very low key start with no mention on the airport website etc

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I wonder whether we may see some more routes from wizz air. I have to say it was a very low key start with no mention on the airport website etc

It does seem strange as BRS is usually very good at publicising new carriers/routes on the day they start.

As for new routes, Poland seems pretty well covered with Ryanair, easyJet and now Wizz. Perhaps Bucharest? There is a Wizz base there. Riga might be another - it's also a Wizz base. Ryanair seemed to get very good loads to Riga but stopped the route several years ago (as they did with Katowice, and Wizz picked that up).

 

[jfy1999]

Has Bristol got Warsaw and Budapest covered already? Those are the two routes Wizz are due to serve from BHX and it might get competitive with BRS passenger loads if they plan to fly to the same places from both.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Has Bristol got Warsaw and Budapest covered already? Those are the two routes Wizz are due to serve from BHX and it might get competitive with BRS passenger loads if they plan to fly to the same places from both.

Yes, Ryanair flies to Budapest and to Warsaw Modlin, both 3 x weekly.

The other BRS Polish routes are:

Ryanair

Gdansk
Poznan
Wroclaw
Rzeszow

easyJet

Krakow

Ryanair has also operated in the past to Lodz, Bydgoszcz and Scezecin (two attempts at this one; the first 2008-2009 and then again in 2013-2014).

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Katowice

This route has had an excellent start load wise.

It began on Friday 26 June operating Fridays and Mondays. 680 passengers were carried on the two rotations (four sectors) in June giving an average load of 170 which equates to a 94.4% load factor on the 180-seat A 320.

The figures suggest that the flights were equally well loaded in both directions from the start.

It seems that this is why the airline decided to add a third weekly rotation on Wednesdays that began on 15 July.

 

[vickersviscount]

Re: Wizz Air

Did read in the business section of one of the daiy papers that Wizz Air were going to take on Ryanair in their dominance of flights from UK to Poland.

My wife often uses the Airport bus to get home from work(she can use her Buss Pass) has often commented on the number of Polish voices amongst the passengers and a relative of mine has many Polish Tenants in his properties. Says there his best tenants, pay on time and no hassle.Some have established businesses here,and I'm not just talking food shops.

Just like many people commute from Bristol to London For work,many polish are commuting from Poland to Uk for work although not on a daily basis of course .
I don't know if Bristol Airport Management divulge previous passenger loads to destinations previously served by other airlines,but it would not surprise me if Wizz Air extend their route network from Bristol.Maybe not enough to base an aircraft,that would undermine their cost base,but I believe they have more aircraft on order so watch this space.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

First of all, thank you for your first post, vickersviscount.

It's possible to ascertain airline passenger numbers from the CAA monthly statistics that are freely available. Where only one airline operates a route obviously all the passenger figures for that route in a given month must be that airline's. By knowing the frequency of flights and the number of seats on the aircraft it's a simple maths task to work out the average load for that month and the load factor (the percentage of seats taken).

In my post of July 10th above I set out the current Polish routes from Bristol - there are currently seven; five operated by Ryanair, and one each by easyJet and Wizz Air.

Because none of the routes is duplicated it's a relatively straightforward task to establish the loads and load factors each month.

Most months in summer Ryanair and easyJet see extremely high monthly load factors on their Polish routes, well into the 90% range. Winter loads are often slightly lower. What this doesn't tell us though is the yield (which is the key to the profit on the route) which will always be commercially confidential. Ryanair operated to Katowice until last year but despite these very high load factors they still axed the route.

Last year Bristol Airport saw over 250,000 passengers on its Polish routes. One negative thing so far as airlines are concerned is that Eastern European passengers are not generally high spenders on board on such things as food and drink, and ancillary revenue like this is quite important to airlines.

It's difficult to see where Wizz could expand to Poland from Bristol without going head to head on a route with Ryanair or easyJet. Lodz, Bydgoszcz and Scezecin have been flown at Bristol in the past by Ryanair but dropped although passenger figures were pretty good. Perhaps Wizz might look at one of these or even Romania or the Baltic States. Ryanair flies from Bristol to Kaunas in Lithuania but dropped Riga in Latvia several years ago again despite very good loadings.

 

[jfy1999]

It's difficult to see where Wizz could expand to Poland from Bristol without going head to head on a route with Ryanair or easyJet. Lodz, Bydgoszcz and Scezecin have been flown at Bristol in the past by Ryanair but dropped although passenger figures were pretty good. Perhaps Wizz might look at one of these or even Romania or the Baltic States. Ryanair flies from Bristol to Kaunas in Lithuania but dropped Riga in Latvia several years ago again despite very good loadings.

I think Wizz's intention at Bristol is in fact to compete directly with Ryanair, if the newspaper reported correctly. The reason they have no competition on the routes they will be starting from Birmingham is because Ryanair's Birmingham offering is comparatively small.

The risk of having just one airline on a route is that the airline will stagnate. I don't know how things are down SW, but that has been the case at Birmingham with Ryanair.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I think Wizz's intention at Bristol is in fact to compete directly with Ryanair, if the newspaper reported correctly. The reason they have no competition on the routes they will be starting from Birmingham is because Ryanair's Birmingham offering is comparatively small.

The risk of having just one airline on a route is that the airline will stagnate. I don't know how things are down SW, but that has been the case at Birmingham with Ryanair.

I'm not at all sure that there would be enough custom to have two airlines competing on the same Polish route. As I posted earlier Ryanair no longer flies to three Polish routes that it used to serve and easyJet once flew from Bristol to Warsaw Chopin. When they gave up Warsaw was unserved for a few years until Ryanair began flying to the newly opened Warsaw Modlin.

Ryanair has had a base at BRS since 2007, having previously flown three routes with non-based aircraft. After an initial surge when up to five aircraft were based at BRS Ryanair slowly reduced its BRS offering until the last few years has seen a fairly static network, albeit in that time some routes have gone to be replaced by others.

easyJet on the other hand although it marked time for a few years around the time of the recession has began to substantially increase its presence and routes, a trend it seems that is likely to continue.

I was slightly surprised that Wizz started the Katowice route. I thought it may have looked at CWL that has no Polish routes and is supported by a Welsh Assembly government that is prepared to throw around millions of pounds to try to attract carriers. It may be that Wizz decided that the far greater strength of the BRS market (than CWL's, both leisure and business) could not be ignored.

Nevertheless, the Wales Assembly government is no doubt trying strenuously to persuade the likes of Wizz to go to CWL and Ryanair to build on its solitary weekly rotation to Tenerife South.