Wizz Air plans to expand all-you-can fly subscription package

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Wizz Air plans to expand the all-you-can-fly subscription service it launched last month to "engage with its loyal customer base" and to further build its brand in all of its markets, its chief executive has said.

The airline is exploring offering an additional 60,000 passes within the next three months to travellers as part of its annual subscription scheme, Jozsef Varadi, Wizz Air's chief executive, told The National on Monday.

This comes after it issued 10,000 passes in August for “unlimited flights" to any destination on its route network that sold out within 24 hours.

"Clearly, the market reaction suggests that it was more popular than we thought. We just want to make sure that we execute this properly and this is what we are fine-tuning at the moment," Mr Varadi said.

"Once that platform is developed very shortly, we are going to expand that ... we are looking at possibly going for 60,000 annual passes once the expansion takes place. I would say this is probably in a couple of months or three months. That would cover our entire footprint, including the Middle East."

Wizz Air’s latest promotion invited travellers to pay €500 ($552) for 12 months of "unlimited flights to any destination on its network".

When these 10,000 passes sold out quickly, the airline put an additional 4,000 passes on sale for €600, an airline representative said. The Middle East’s share of these passes was about 20 per cent of the total, the representative said. The planned batch of 60,000 passes will also be sold for €600 each.

While the airline is seeking to "enhance engagement" with loyal customers, the subscription service also has its limitations, Mr Varadi said. "The product is offered to you with significant limitations: so you can only book three days before travelling and this is subject to availability. So it's not like you buy a very cheap pass and you do whatever you want with it," he said.

Wizz Air is also seeking to strike a balance between providing consumers with a fair deal and making money out of the scheme.

"You have to make sure that the limitations make sense to the consumer but that it also makes sense to the company, so that it's a win-win," Mr Varadi said.

"If you push the win over to the consumer, then this is just going to be losing money for the company. But if you kind of abuse your profit opportunity, then it's going to dissatisfy the consumer. So you have to strike the right balance and this is what we're trying to figure out. For us, it is about really enhancing the brand through consumer engagement to build loyalty even further."

Wizz Air, which bills itself as Europe's greenest airline, is introducing its flight subscription service at a time when environmental groups are condemning the global aviation sector's contribution to carbon dioxide emissions during a climate crisis.

Asked about the environmental concerns that the airline's latest promotion may raise, the chief executive said the scheme is helping to fill more airline seats to run full flights, which is more environmentally efficient.

"Think about this: what this product achieves is to fill the empty seats on airplanes, so as opposed to putting up another flight, I am actually creating more efficiency in the operation. So that's more sustainable because I still fly increased demand with the same aircraft. I am not adding another aircraft ... this is more sustainable," Mr Varadi said.

Travellers who purchased passes can now fly to destinations such as the Maldives, Iceland and Italy, with no routes excluded from the membership.

Wizz Air’s MultiPass, a 12-month subscription plan, allows subscribers to travel each month on eligible flights by paying a monthly fixed fee.