From Wizz To Worse

 

Photo©Nigel Summerley

Having vowed never to use Wizz Air again [see this blog 22 February] after a seven-hour delay at Malaga airport, I paid ten times as much for a return flight to Athens with British Airways, thinking it would be worth all that money just to get where I was going on time.

It was more than frustrating, then, when BA did a Wizz and cancelled my lunchtime flight and put me on another one, not seven but eight hours later.

My relaxing evening in Athens thus became arriving at my hotel at 3am.

Naively, I thought I might be due some compensation and filled in BA's application form.

It warned me that it was dealing with a lot of complaints – no shit, Sherlock – and could take some time to get back to me.

In fact, it got back to me impressively quickly to tell me that I would get zilch – because the delay was due to "Europe-wide industrial action", ie nothing to do with us.

Next time I think I'll just get the cheapest flight available and have no great expectations about when I might fly or arrive...

From Bad To Wizz

A Which? survey says UK travellers rate Wizz Air as the worst short-haul airline.

I reckon they're not wrong.

I recently made the mistake of relying on Wizz Air to get me back from Spain on time.

My flight from Malaga at 11.45am was "delayed" until 5.15pm. So I spent seven hours in the airport with absolutely no information from Wizz Air.

When I asked at the gate through which we finally boarded what was the reason for the "delay", one of the airport staff told me that this flight was regularly cancelled – why, they didn't know.

Only when we got on board were we told by Wizz Air that there had been a "technical problem" – they claimed they'd had to get another plane because the original one wasn't working.

Things didn't improve. I'd reluctantly accepted having to fly back to Luton since an arrival before 2pm would give me plenty of time to get back into London. But the reality of not getting out of Luton airport until 8pm and then having to stand in the rain for an hour waiting for a bus on a train-strike day was rather different...

Customers rated Wizz Air as worse than Ryanair, says Which? Probably the ultimate non-accolade...

A Wizz Air spokesperson was quoted as saying: "We do everything possible to ensure that passengers reach their destination on time and with minimal delay." 

Well, they'll be doing it without me – and probably without quite a few other unhappy customers – from now on...