Wizz Air Flies Further East Than Ever Before With New Maldives A321 Route

Wizz Air

IATA/ICAO Code:

W6/WZZ

Airline Type:

Ultra-Low-Cost Carrier

Year Founded:

2003

CEO:

József Váradi

Country:

Hungary

Wizz Air has inaugurated Abu Dhabi to Malé, Maldives, its first destination in South Asia and its most easterly destination yet. However, that'll change in March, when Mattala, Sri Lanka, takes off. Malé comes shortly after the start of Wizz Air's first flight to Saudi Arabia, vividly illustrating – as if it's needed – just how it's expanding beyond its bread-and-butter Central and Eastern European markets.

Wizz Air to the Maldives

At 10:54 on October 4th, A6-WZF – an A321neo delivered to Wizz Air Abu Dhabi last month – departed from the UAE capital bound for the Maldives. This is arguably among the most different of all Wizz Air's routes.

It is currently operating on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, but will rise to 6x weekly in November (no Monday flight) and 1x daily from December to February, making it one of Wizz Air Abu Dhabi's most-served routes. It'll reduce to 4x weekly next summer.

It is scheduled as follows, with all times local. The shift to an afternoon departure this winter will help to increase sectors per aircraft per day, one aspect of aircraft productivity, with a roundtrip able to be operated in the morning.

Abu Dhabi to Malé: 5W7105, 10:25-16:45 (5h 20m block time); from October 30th, 13:30-19:50
Malé to Abu Dhabi: 5W7106, 17:40-22:30 (5h 50m); from October 30th, 20:45-01:35+1

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One direct competitor

Until now, Abu Dhabi-Malé has always had one airline: Etihad. The carrier serves the market 1x daily utilizing two-class, 299-seat B787-9s. It isn't surprising that booking data shows that a large chunk of its passengers – over three quarters – transit over Abu Dhabi rather than being point-to-point (P2P).

Still, the Abu Dhabi-Malé P2P market is reasonably sized, with around 33,000 passengers in 2019 and more than 253,000 from the UAE as a whole. Wizz Air will be betting on strongly stimulating Abu Dhabi demand from much lower average P2P fares, growing strongly the size of the pie.

Wizz Air's first Abu Dhabi-Malé flight. Image: Flightradar24.

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Much longer than normal flights

After 4h 59m, the first flight landed in Malé at 16:53 local time, according to Flightradar24. It was more than an hour longer than Etihad's typical duration. The difference was even starker on the return journey: 5h 17m for Wizz Air against just 3h 42m on Etihad's most recent flight.

Wizz Air's first flight from the Maldives. Image: Flightradar24.

A lack of ETOPS

The difference is primarily for one reason: extended twin-engine operations (ETOPS) or, rather, the lack of it. Etihad has it, and Wizz Air doesn't.

While Etihad's B787-9s route right across the Arabian Sea for hours, Wizz Air instead goes over Pakistan and India to minimalize overwater flying, a long way from alternate airports, for prolonged periods.

While Etihad's very direct route roughly covers the great circle (i.e., shortest) distance of 1,876 miles (3,018km), it's about a quarter farther on average for Wizz Air. Among other things, that extra flying means more fuel consumption and a longer and less attractive schedule, although it primarily competes on price. Luckily, it's highly likely that very few of its potential future routes will require ETOPS.

What do you make of the network development? Let us know in the comments.