A Wizz Air A321 at Budapest Airport.Photo / Grant Bradley
A Wizz Air A321 at Budapest Airport.Photo / Grant Bradley
Grant Bradley flies aboard Wizz Air W6 2375 from Budapest to Barcelona.
The plane: An Airbus A321.
My seat: 5E, in the middle of three. Leather, wide enough but not a lot of leg room.
Class: Economy, although my wife and I splashed out with a bag weighing 23kg in the hold and cabin bags up to 15kg. Most others went for the big cabin bags also, so there was not a lot of room in overhead lockers.
On time? Pushed back three minutes early as a blazing late-August sun was rising over Budapest. We landed 2 hours 30 minutes later after flying 1650km.
The airline: Wizz is a very fast-growing European low-cost operator with its main hub in Hungary. It flies to 42 countries, nearly all in Europe, with a fleet of 83 Airbus A320/A321 planes - and another 140 on order. (One of Air New Zealand's top executives, Stephen Jones, is leaving to join Wizz in a senior role this year.)
The online experience: We booked directly and easily on the Wizz site, the airline has a snappy new app and it was very clear and user-friendly with emailed pre-flight information.
Even at 5am, Budapest's Ferenc Liszt International was heaving. The lineup of ultra-low cost carriers was why - it was at the end of the summer holidays. Once we'd established where to go, a friendly Wizz staffer checked us in and it was a 30-minute passage through screening and security to the gate "lounge," a hangar on the tarmac. It worked. Budapest Airport is about 25 minutes from the centre of the city with little traffic early in the morning. The taxi fare is around $50, an airport bus is $9.50 per person.
A safety card for Wizz Air. Photo / Grant Bradley
Fellow travellers:
Very much the at leisure and travelling families' end of the market.
The price: Our one-way fare with extra bags and guaranteed seats together came to $280 each. They get you with ancillary charges: the basic fare was around half that.
Entertainment: Newsy and helpful glossy mag, Wizz, which was in English. I couldn't help but notice that the illustrations on the safety briefing card were a tad, ahem, suggestive, with the female cabin crew staffer depicted in a very short, almost transparent dress.
The service: Five cabin crew were pleasingly quick to wheel out the food cart. They were efficient and friendly.
The toilets: One forward and one back which I found was in good order three quarters of the way through the flight.
How full: There were around six seats spare in the 230-seat aircraft.
Food and drink: Sandwiches were €4, soup €3, coffee €2.50-€3. A bit early for me, but beer and wine was €4: The chicken club sandwich was on the edge of expiry but there were no after-affects.
The bottom line: The airline with an unforgettable name and memorable bright pink and blue livery delivered us a no-frills, no-fuss experience. If you haven't time to go by train you could do worse than flying Wizz.
