The low-cost airline Wizz Air has been plagued by a problem in the area of ​​onboard sales for a long time: Credit cards are not particularly widespread in Eastern Europe, but debit and prepaid cards from the Visa and Mastercard brands are. However, this is exactly what Partner Gate Gourmet does not want to accept.

The reason for this is that online authorization is not possible due to a lack of internet connection. Specifically, this means that Wizz Air cannot check whether the credit or debit card is really covered. With the advent of so-called fintechs, more and more cards are coming into circulation that at first glance look like a classic credit card, but are debit or prepaid cards.

It is made no secret of the fact that prepaid cards from fintechs are not accepted. For example, Revolut is explicitly mentioned in the sales catalog. The reason is that immediate authorization is not possible. Acceptance would therefore be at Gate Gourmet's sole risk and, of course, you do not want uncovered cards.

Credit and debit cards with the service code 201 can have offline limits. In this case, the card chip informs the terminal that, for example, up to an amount of 250 euros can be authorized offline. Then Gate Gourmet and Wizz Air have a payment guarantee. However, if the codes 221 (mandatory online authorization) or 226 (mandatory online authorization with PIN entry) are stored, the payment terminal cannot process and rejects it. In addition, the cards of some issuers with whom one apparently had negative previous experiences were blocked regardless of code 201. Fintechs are primarily affected.

WLAN will initially be rolled out at Wizz Air UK

That could change in the future, as Wizz Air intends to introduce WLAN services on board the Airbus fleet. This is primarily intended to be used for processing payment transactions. Then you will also be able to authorize debit and prepaid cards online, which could lead to more sales in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Furthermore, passengers should also be able to use messaging services such as WhatsApp.

The rollout of high-speed Internet for streaming & Co is not planned, at least for the time being. The WLAN antennas are also much smaller and lighter than those at Lufthansa, for example, because they are so-called window receivers from AS-IP Tech. The first ground tests at Wizz Air UK in an Airbus A321 were successfully completed.

Access to the Internet is obtained via the window antennas from satellites. Wizz Air is the first customer of the newly developed system, which is initially to be rolled out at Wizz Air UK. We are talking about so-called “basic Internet”, which is to be made available to travelers. When the rollout will start and how much Wizz Air will collect for the use of messaging services such as WhatsApp and Co is still completely open.