Wizz Air cancels flights to inspect plane engines
The budget airline will carry out "accelerated inspections" on engines
PA
Wizz Air has cancelled multiple flights in order to inspect the engines of some of its aircrafts.
The “accelerated inspections” affects flights to and from Luton and Gatwick between next month and October.
Passengers whose trips will be affected will be contacted by the airline, who will offer them an alternative flight, full refunds or 120 per cent airline credit.
A statement from the company yesterday said: “Wizz Air announces today that due to the accelerated inspections of several of our GTF engines mandated by Pratt&Whitney, we have made adjustments to the network resulting in cancellations of some flights on selected days between certain destinations.
Passengers will receive a new flight, a refund, or 120 per cent credit
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“Passengers on the affected flights will be offered an alternative flight schedule, provided full refunds in the original method of payment, or offered 120 per cent of the original fare in airline reservation credit.
“In the instance a booking was created via a travel agency or an online travel agency, we advise customers to reach out to the agency which owns the booking to make necessary changes to the reservation. Wizz Air also recommends checking the spam folder for emails about possible schedule changes.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by this unplanned event out of our control, but the safety and security of our passengers, crew and aircraft is our number one priority.”
Wizz Air has recently been in hot water, after the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) ordered the airline to revisit compensation claims by customers last month.
The CAA said that Wizz Air had received “high volumes of complaints about the airline not paying passengers what they are owed”.
The Hungarian ultra-low cost carrier was also caught up in last year’s summer travel chaos.
This was caused by an influx of travellers post-covid, which resulted in many flights being delayed and cancelled as airports struggled to cope with the increase in passengers.
The CAA said that they have been in contact with the budget airline for months, after receiving many complaints.
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The airline has a large presence in Luton and Gatwick airports
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Due to the unhappy customers, the CAA has instructed Wizz Air to “make changes to its policies and procedures”.
The airline has reportedly engaged with the regulator over the complaints.
Wizz Air has a large presence at Luton Airport and considers it to be one of its hub. Last year, more than 6 million passengers flew on the airline out of Luton.
Gatwick is also an important airport for the airline, as it’s home to one of its operating bases.
The airline has been growing significantly recently, launching 18 new routes and the expansion has created more than 200 new jobs, according to Wizz Air.