Wizz Air will end a further eight London routes: Gatwick to Chania, Funchal (Madeira), Tenerife South, and Luton to Keflavik, Malaga, Ohrid, Olsztyn-Mazury (which serves the fantastic thousand lakes area of Poland), and Palanga.

This builds on ten other routes from the UK capital that have already been disclosed as ending: Gatwick to Bari, Palma, Varna, and Luton to Castellón, Funchal, Gran Canaria, Porto, Rzeszów, Sarajevo, and Tenerife South. We already know some routes that will replace them, which also include Gatwick-Nice; more will be coming.

Wizz Air ends eight London routes

Details of the eight are shown below, all of which were due to be operated by Wizz Air UK. I am booked on Gatwick-Funchal to go on a cruise, and I have four Luton-Malaga tickets for my children's summer trip in July. I also flew Gatwick-Tenerife South earlier this month.

Nearly 40% of routes flown/booked are going; what are the odds of that? As they aren't 'officially' cut yet – they all appear as 'sold out,' which is a precursor to being removed – Wizz Air hasn't yet informed me (along with other passengers) that they will no longer operate.

What's happening?

All airlines end routes: 'churn' is part and parcel of network development. However, it often seems like Wizz Air cuts more than others, possibly one consequence of the speed of its expansion, obviously driven in part by airport deals, and the experimentation of specific routes, although projected demand and performance are fully forecasted.

Even extremely well-demanded routes (like Gatwick to Tenerife, and Luton to Malaga) haven't performed well enough versus alternative aircraft uses. It's too early to look at Wizz Air's recent fares and loads on such routes using booking and UK CAA data; information will be available in the coming months.

But consider my (wholly unscientific) personal experience from Gatwick to Tenerife and back in January, a month very popular for Canary Island travel. Had I booked the flights a week before departure, I'd have paid less than £40 outbound and less than £20 inbound (£8.99 with the discount card). Despite such low fares, the inbound to Gatwick – which took 4h 17m – had a seat load factor of just 38%.

Yet, the market is huge, even in January: it was one of the few places in Europe for warm winter weather. Across all airlines, 97,000 passengers flew London-Tenerife-London in January 2020 (passengers daily each way of 1,565), and 53,000 (PDEW: 855) in still COVID-hit January 2022. Relying on ultra-efficient, 239-seat A321neos, with very low seat-mile costs, clearly isn't enough on its own.

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Back to basics while building awareness

Of course, Wizz Air has often struggled in Western Europe to Western Europe markets versus its core Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Examples abound of routes, bases, and airports that are no longer part of its network. Not surprisingly, it often seems to do well during peak periods, particularly during school holidays, when competitor carriers have much higher fares.

Generally, though, it appears that Wizz Air suffers from a lack of brand awareness within Western Europe markets. Anecdotally, my girlfriend, who is Polish, pointed out at least two dozen Polish-speaking people along with other CEE languages (all different couples and families) on Gatwick-Tenerife; not what I'd have expected on that route. Yet, they would, generally speaking, be well aware of the carrier.

Moreover, it fairly frequently changes schedules, cancels flights, and so on (I have had multiple flight changes), sometimes even reasonably close to departure, leading to schedule problems, unreliability, and distrust. Low seat-mile costs and low average fares won't fully overcome that. To increase the chance of intra-Western Europe working, it's time to go back to basics while driving better awareness.

Have you flown Wizz Air so far this year? If so, let us know where in the comments.

Thanks to Sean Moulton for the heads-up yesterday.