Birmingham Airport: Which? magazine urges travellers to ‘avoid’ Wizz Air

Wizz Air, the ultra-low-cost airline carrier that operates out of Birmingham has received a negative rating from Which? magazine
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An ultra-low-cost airlines carrier that operates out of Birmingham airport has received a negative rating from Which? magazine and it has urged customers to avoid it.

The consumer magazine says that customers rated Wizz Air - which is headquartered in Hungary - as the “worst airline”. The airline was given one star out of five for boarding experience, cabin environment and seat comfort. It didn’t get more than two stars in the remaining categories, including value for money and cleanliness.

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The airline expanded to more destinations apart from Eastern Europe in recent years. In the UK, they operate from eight airports, including Birmingham. There are seven Wizz Air routes from Birmingham Airport.

The magazine says that “almost half of respondents” said it had no staff available during delays. The overall customer score for Wizz Air was 48% while Ryanair had 52%, Eurowings had 53% and British Airways had 56%. Jet2 had a customer score of 80%.

In December 2022, the Civil Aviation Authority raised concerns about the airlines “over high volumes of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) complaints and delays in paying passengers what they are owed”.

The regulator said: “Wizz Air ranked as clearly the worst airline for complaints escalated to either ADR schemes or the regulator’s in-house complaints team in the third quarter of 2022, with 811 complaints per million passengers.”

Which is the best airline?

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Jet2 has been named the best airlines and that too operates out of Birmingham. It has five-star rating for customer service. It was called “exceptional for any airline, but especially one that offers budget fares” by the magazine.

Despite the disruption in air travel lately, Jet2 has been reportedly reliable as it’s on time figure for flights was average. Almost three-fourth of the number of responders said staff was on hand to help if a delay did happen. Meanwhile, for Ryanair that figure is only 40% .

A Wizz Air jet (Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)A Wizz Air jet (Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)
A Wizz Air jet (Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)

What Wizz Air said

A Wizz Air spokesperson said: “At Wizz Air, we do everything possible to ensure that passengers reach their destination on time and with minimal delay. We invest heavily into time performance, which is key to our ultra-efficient business model.

“A number of issues affecting the global aviation industry contributed to a worse time performance in 2022. These issues resulted from a widespread shortage in staff, in particular within air traffic control, ground operations and baggage handling, security and across airports. We are committed to constantly reviewing processes to mitigate these issues and are seeing an overall improvement in the on-time performance of our routes.

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“Wizz Air operates a fleet of brand new, state-of-the-art Airbus aircraft, with an average age of 4.6 years, which offer passengers comfort, space, and modern interiors. The A321neo features the widest single-aisle cabin configuration with 239 18-inch-wide seats.

“Every aircraft is cleaned after each flight and deep cleaned every night. The onboard menu is reviewed and updated on a bi-monthly basis and, following customer feedback, a local products range was recently introduced on all Wizz Air UK flights. We welcome all customer feedback, so that we can continuously refine our processes to further enhance customer experience.”

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