Hungarian airline Wizz Air, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has just launched a new commercial offer that is rather unprecedented in the sector. “All you can fly” is an annual subscription that costs €599 and allows you to “fly unlimited throughout the airline’s network,” i.e., in around fifty countries. For a few days, the offer was available at an introductory price of €499 for the year. In all, the company plans to market 10,000 subscriptions of this type.
In Luxembourg, Wizz Air flights have been suspended since February due to maintenance carried out by the manufacturer Pratt & Whitney on the engines powering its Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft. The maintenance is still underway and should be completed by the end of the year. It is impossible to book a flight to or from Findel on the website. Contacted to find out when flights will be operating there again, the airline had not yet replied to our questions at the time of publication of this article. It should be noted, however, that bookings from Charleroi are still possible, so travellers interested in this new offer could opt for this airport located some 200km away from the Luxembourg capital.
To take advantage of this offer, all you have to do is sign up for a subscription on the airline's website, for an annual fee of €599. But the small print in the general terms and conditions of sale reveals that the €599 will not be enough to travel. First of all, holders of the pass will have to pay at least €9.99 for each of their journeys, which the company calls the “segment package.”
No baggage, no changes and no seat guarantee
Another important element, which no doubt reveals the airline’s strategy with this new offer, is that travellers can only book their flight three days before departure (72 hours), and seats are subject to availability. Through that approach, the subscription allows the airline to maximise its chances of selling its last seats. Because even at a low price, every seat sold is a way of increasing revenue a little more. Especially as a seat sold via a season ticket will “force” the passenger to pay extra for baggage or food on board. This is another of the general terms and conditions of sale: the season ticket does not include baggage or “any additional services.”
You should also know that booked flights cannot be changed, nor can you book for a passenger other than yourself. In the event of a no-show, if the customer books a seat without actually boarding the aircraft, the airline reserves the right to cancel the subscription, without refund and with immediate effect. The subscription implies a 12-month commitment, with automatic renewal. Seat sales for this “All you can fly” subscription will begin in September.
This new formula could also pose some difficulties when the electronic entry/exit system (ESS) introduced by the EU comes into force at the end of 2024. This system is designed to record and track entries and exits across the Schengen area’s external borders. Today, passengers must provide certain information before boarding a plane (name, passport number and date of birth), known as Advance Passenger Information (API). In the future, under the new system, airlines will have to obtain authorisation for passengers to travel 48 hours before departure, after the API has been checked and validated by the system. They will have to send the API for verification. This is a complicated deadline for last-minute bookings.
This article was originally published in .