The low-cost airline Wizz Air is permanently canceling a total of 12 routes from Vienna-Schwechat. These are both vacation and city routes. The company does not provide any information on the reasons for reducing its presence at Austria's largest airport.

Just a few weeks ago everything looked very different: Wizz Air announced new routes and the Stationing of another Airbus A321neo on. People were satisfied with the results in Vienna-Schwechat. But shortly afterwards one started with a (temporary) String concert. Company spokesman András Rado justified this with the recent lockdown in Austria.

Well-advertised routes such as Akaba and Amman were in contrast to competitor Ryanair extremely short term not recordedThere was no official communication from Wizz Air on this - as on all other cuts. The Vienna offer has now shrunk to the back burner and is roughly comparable to what was available in the previous “Corona winter”. However, the carrier did not only use the red pencil in Vienna, but Across the network, many routes have been taken for a break. 84 of these are not to be resumed.

Of these 84 routes, 12 are in Vienna. An analysis of the flight plan data has shown that no other base is as badly affected as the Austrian capital. Specifically, the routes to Alghero, Charleroi, Cologne / Bonn, Dortmund, Faro, Madrid, Oslo, Stockholm-Skavsta, Tallinn, Mahon (Menorca), Eindhoven and Warsaw-Chopin are to be permanently discontinued. In the meantime, sales on these routes have also been terminated and some of the routes have already been deleted from the sales system.

Salzburg flights acutely on the brink

Not only Vienna-Schwechat is affected, but also Salzburg. The flights to St. Petersburg are now finally not to be started. You actually wanted to fly since September 2020, but it was the first flight regularly shifted backwards. Now Wizz Air seems to have finally lost interest. The same applies to Kiev-Schuljany, which is also not to be served from Mozart's city. All that remains is Varna, with the actual first flight in view of the fact that this year it has been canceled at short notice and around postponed a whole year, is also questionable.

Data from the analysis provider RDC show that the Wizz-Air base in Vienna is allegedly the base that achieves the lowest yield across the route network and, on top of that, the number of passengers is below average. Even in places that are hardly known, but Wizz Air has a base, the carrier can supposedly achieve better income and occupancy rates according to the RDC data.

It also seems remarkable that the competitor Ryanair in Vienna can still achieve a high occupancy rate despite lockdown and increasingly complicated entry regulations. The booking numbers should not have collapsed so far. Apart from Agadir, which cannot be approached due to the landing ban for international passenger flights, as well as some smaller cuts, the Ryanair subsidiaries Buzz and Lauda Europe are flying the winter flight schedule 2021/22 so far without route settings. We hear from the group that demand and capacity utilization should be good.

Why things are diametrically different at competitor Wizz Air in Vienna is a mystery that is currently preoccupying the industry. The fact that the Hungarian provider only allows booking changes without surcharge when purchasing the Flex package, but that Ryanair only collects any tariff difference, is probably not enough to make such a clear difference in performance.

The airline is silent about the cuts

It is not yet known whether Wizz Air will replace the 12 canceled routes with other destinations from the Austrian capital or whether its presence will be permanently reduced. The lowcoster did not respond to a request for a reduction in Austria.

Subsequently, it is also unclear whether there will be job cuts in Austria. Unless “replacement targets” are included, it is unlikely that additional aircraft will be stationed. A reduction in the number of Airbus jets held on site could then be expected. This would then also mean that fewer flight personnel would be required. So far, Wizz Air has not commented on the drastic route reductions in Vienna-Schwechat.

The following routes (selection) should be set permanently: