The low-cost airline Wizz Air rarely uses the services of ACMI providers. But at the moment several carriers are in use for the lowcoster and in the next few days the use of wet lease aircraft could even prove to be the case.

In view of the fact that Wizz Air has not yet brought its entire fleet into the air, at first glance it is quite strange that they use subcontractors. However, a look at a press release that the company sent out a few weeks ago shows the cause: For Vienna, among other places, they are desperately looking for new flight attendants. Wizz Air has been cutting the workforce at many bases since the previous year, but the extent of employer layoffs was rather low in direct comparison with voluntary layoffs by employees.

The Wizz Air payment system is - with minor differences - the same at all bases. Only the level of basic wages and sector-dependent variable components differ depending on the state. The lion's share of the monthly salary of the flying staff is made up of the performance-related parts and in the case of an enormous number of them these have broken down to "almost zero" in winter because there were few flights due to pandemics and demand. The consequence of this is that the earnings consisted (almost) only of the basic salary and was therefore not exactly generous. The consequence of it? For financial reasons, many flight attendants looked for new jobs and quit Wizz Air.

Some bases are said to have had additional paycuts. Wizz Air may have saved a lot of money, but the bottom line is that there is now a shortage of staff. At the same time, one or the other competitor would be happy to be able to part with employees who are “parked” on short-time work, since in the medium term there is less demand.

We are urgently looking for wet lease capacities

Wizz Air drives this into a quandary, because you are dependent on the income from the ticket sales and cancellations of flights on which many vacationers are, are not at all good. The lowcoster knows very well that the trust of private customers in the entire industry hangs by a silk thread and that the booking numbers can quickly tip due to the cautious attitude of many people. Vacationers who are “stranded” somewhere do not have a sales-promoting effect at all. The name of the airline is irrelevant.

An interim solution must be found until the workforce has been increased and the flight attendants who are moving up have been trained. This is no surprise: Renting machines and crew from airlines specializing in ACMI and charter flights. These are currently GetJet Airlines, Titan Airways and Hifly, each with two planes. Negotiations are being held with Just Us Air about the wet lease of an Airbus A321. In the last few days, Wizz Air has also obtained offers from numerous other airlines, including direct competitors, so that further ACMI planes can be expected to be hired. It is still completely open who will get a move. In any case, operators who have submitted offers can be heard that Wizz is “urgently” looking for capacities.

Cardiff: Base opening not until summer 2022

Regardless of the mainland, there is also a change in the UK that Wizz Air UK has not communicated vociferously. The opening of the Cardiff base was postponed to the summer flight schedule of 2022 at short notice. The planned domestic flights to Jersey will also not be included - at least this holiday season.

The cause in the UK is likely to be completely different: In general, numerous carriers “take out” capacities, because the entry and quarantine regulations when returning to the UK are quite complicated and do not promote sales. In addition, some popular holiday destinations link the entry of UK guests to full vaccinations or they still have the UK on dark red lists, which should then mostly trigger quarantine at the holiday destination.