The Polish Ryanair subsidiary Buzz informed its pilots on Friday that there will be further cuts in the winter flight schedule due to the weak demand due to the corona pandemic. The Krakow base will therefore be reduced in terms of planes and destinations.

According to a circular available to Aviation Direct, there are plans to temporarily only fly at weekends. The sister company Lauda chose a similar approach in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart, whereby both bases were closed before the winter flight schedule and the staff received the notice. At Buzz, however, they do not want to talk about the closure of the Polish stations as well as Prague and Warsaw, but the management wants to offer part-time models across the route network. These are primarily aimed at pilots.

However, the cuts and savings at Buzz are not entirely surprising, because the Ryanair Group announced on Thursday that capacity will be reduced across the network. In addition to Düsseldorf and Stuttgart (Lauda), other bases are to be officially closed temporarily. The capacity of all group airlines will be noticeably reduced, which could ultimately lead to a reduction in staff. Buzz is now trying to cushion this as much as possible with part-time models. The overwhelming majority of the flying personnel of the Polish Ryanair subsidiary are employed by the temporary employment agency Warsaw Aviation.

In the present circular, Buzz also strongly criticizes the governments and the European Union. It is alleged that the mismanagement leads to all airlines being forced to cut their offers. The Polish low-cost airline will try to offer as many routes and frequencies as possible, but the flight schedule has to be drastically reduced due to a lack of demand.

The only destination that Buzz heads to from Austria is Warsaw-Modlin. It is a small provincial airport that is around an hour by train from the Polish capital. In the past few weeks, tickets for EUR 7,99 and less have been sold on this route very often. In the 2020/21 winter flight schedule, Buzz made a big cut: instead of daily, there will only be flights once a week on Sundays. The Buzz flights are operated under the Ryanair code, with the staff wearing uniforms that have the Buzz logo for several months.