Flying Wizz Air, European low-cost airline

by Meg Nesterov on


I just flew with Wizz Air, a major budget airline in Europe whose name and stunts I had previously only snickered over. It turns out in addition to offering low fares across Europe, they are also the largest carrier in Hungary (at least according to Wizz, Malev Hungarian would beg to differ) and a major player in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. Last week I traveled to Bulgaria (look for some future Weekending posts soon) and decided to try to fly across the country from the Black Sea town of Varna to the capital city Sofia rather than spend another eight hours on a bus. As is often the case with budget carriers, Wizz has caught a fair amount of flack for their nickle-and-diming fare structure and customer service, so I was anxious to experience it first-hand.The booking process
The low-cost carrier advertises flights as low as 15 GBP from London to Poland before taxes and fees, and I found fares from Varna to Sofia starting at 78 Bulgarian (around $50 USD) plus a few bucks for taxes. Not too bad, a lot pricier than the bus but much faster. Enter the laundry list of service fees. First, you are hit up 5 Euros per passenger to use a credit card (only other options are European credit cards or bank transfers that aren’t possible for US travelers). Next, you are offered a bunch of services that might be useful for some (extra legroom, flexible booking, priority boarding, etc) but not integral to the flight. Then comes the big guns: baggage allowances. Whether I’m traveling for two days or two weeks, at maximum I pack a standard wheelie carry-on and a purse, and avoid checking bags whenever possible. Wizz allows just one piece free, up to 10 kg (22 pounds), and charges 15 to 60 Euros per bag depending if you select the option online, at the airport, or at the gate. Not wishing to be caught with a surprise charge at the airport, I opted to check one bag. Final tally: 117 Bulgarian leva per ticket or $76 USD, booked less than two weeks in advance.

Pre-departure
Haven’t even gotten to the airport and there’s another potential fee: flight check-in. It’s free if you do it online up to 7 days in advance AND print boarding passes, or 10 Euros if you wait until arriving at the airport or can’t find a printer. After entering your passport information and checking in online, your boarding passes are available as web documents or PDFs. I downloaded the PDFs and emailed to my hotel in Varna, who were kind enough to print, but boarding passes via email. Arriving at the airport, they will still check your documents, but my baggage was not scrutinized and I noticed several fellow passengers with more than one bag to carry on, so I may have been able to get away with a purse and a rollerboard.

In-flight experience
Seating on the flight is open, causing the usual every-man-for-himself rush at the gate, but inside the plane, seats are relatively comfy with snazzy purple leather seats. There is an excellent (and free!) in-flight magazine with great destination info and articles that made me want to move to Poland immediately. The Varna to Sofia flight was too short for the full food and beverage “service” (i.e. they didn’t wheel out the cart of stuff you pay for) but the usual drinks and snacks were available for purchase at typically high prices (2.50 Euros for water, 3 Euros for Cup Noodles, which is sort of a great flight food idea). Flight attendants were helpful and cheerful in the signature purple and hot pink colors.

All told, I’d fly Wizz again (especially to Poland), especially if I were near to one of their hubs. Fares are much lower than the competition (Bulgarian Air priced out at 211 leva for the same route) and if you stop looking at fares as inherently all-inclusive, the a la cart structure is actually refreshing and honest. There aren’t many perks and no in-flight movies or tv, but with most flights under 3 hours, you can get by. Airline experiences are all in the seat of the beholder, but with prices this low, a leather seat and free English-language reading material feels more luxe than low-cost.

Gadling test drives new search engine Hipmunk.com

by Grant Martin on

The new buzz on the internets this week is all about a new fare booking site called Hipmunk, a catchy, minimalist little site with a unique way of presenting fares.

Founded by the co-founders of Reddit (Steve Huffmann) and BookTour (Adam Goldstein), Hipmunk brings a unique, fresh way of looking at fare data unlike the old tabular model. Timing and duration are stressed, so a list of fares on each airline as a function of departure and length are presented in a series of parallel, colored bars.

In this way, passengers can easily see when they depart, how long they’ll be traveling, where they have layovers and when they arrive. Sorted against price, one can easily pick the lowest priced ticket against the that with the shortest travel time. Lower ranking fares under the best conditions per airline are folded under each line.

One can also sort fares by number of stops, duration or agony and then continue searching.

Once users have found a reasonable itinerary, they can click on their favorite fare and then carry over to Orbitz for finalized booking.

And only Orbitz, mind you. Why is this an issue? Well, we don’t know exactly where Hipmunk’s fare data comes from (their FAQ says that they’re not owned by an online travel agent), but if they’re only monetizing through Orbitz then they’re only limited to fares that Orbitz displays. And as we all know, Orbitz doesn’t necessarily always display the lowest possible fare. Coincidentally, however, the online travel agent does provide the industry highest return for each referred and purchased ticket, $3 versus $2 for Travelocity.

Running a quick search for an upcoming itinerary from ORD-CDG that we’ve got on the calendar, the proof is in the pudding. Hipmunk returns an (Orbitz available) $823 for roundtrip fare, while metacrawler Kayak (that actually queries aerlingus.com) returns $796.

This isn’t to say that Hipmunk’s model is broken — their interface is lovely and the amount of returned data is simply outstanding — they just need to expand their dataset for searching and monetization. Until this happens, we recommend using at least a few different engines in addition to your current searches on Hipmunk.

Daily Pampering: Three most luxurious first-class cabins

by Melanie Nayer on

America can learn a lot from the Far East in the way of air travel. We rounded up the three best first-class cabins for your flying pleasure. After all, if you’re going to travel around the world, you might as well do it in style.

Singapore Airlines: They call them SkySuites, we call them ‘heaven.’ There are only 12 on each plane and if you’re lucky enough to grab one you can expect luxury like never before. Sit down in your leather-upholstered, Burrwood-trimmed seat that fully reclines and comes complete with a turn-down service and down-filled mattress and duvet. The first-class meals are prepared by world-class chefs, and you can choose your meal before the flight. Enjoy some Dom Perignon and Krug while you fly through the skies.

Cathay Pacific: From the concierge-style service at check-in to the on-demand prepared food in-flight, Cathay Pacific is worthy of a ‘most luxurious’ status. Once you sit down, amenity kits with Acca Kappa Italian products and Shanghai Tang pajamas await. The seat is easily extendable into a full-length bed with pillows and duvets and, thanks to a privacy screen, the seat is transformed into a cozy bedroom. The first-class ‘bedrooms’ give a whole knew meaning to sleeping in the sky.

Emirates Airlines: The first class, fully-enclosed cabins are relatively new to Emirates, but a welcome amenity to first-class fliers. The doors to the cabins can be opened and closed at will, and like your hotel comes with ‘do not disturb’ signal. The best part? Tall passengers will appreciate the no overhead bin space, but don’t worry – there is plenty of space to stow your carry-on. Our favorite part? The personal mini-bar is your pod.

Want more? Get your daily dose of pampering right here.

On Your Side by Christopher Elliott helps with travel customer service issues

by Scott Carmichael on

In the travel world, Christopher Elliott is a bit of a hero – on his blog, he regularly saves passengers from lost tickets, rental car horrors and other travel mishaps.

Since there is only one Christopher Elliott, he’s started a site designed to aid travelers in resolving some of their own problems. On Your Side is built as a blog and Wiki, which means anyone can add and edit information. The current content covers airlines, car rental companies, cruise lines and online travel agencies.

Each entry provides things like the mailing address, phone number, an overview of the company, rules and regulations and even shortcuts on how to get an operator on the phone. For some companies, the site also lists executive customer service contacts.

I’ve spent about half an hour going through the site and am amazed at how comprehensive a lot of the content is. Next time you find yourself with a customer service issue with a travel company, check out On Your Side and see whether a well written complaint letter can resolve all your problems. The site is easy to navigate, and by signing up, you can add your own information to it. My only minor complaint is that there is (currently) no mobile version, making it less useful if you need quick access to information on the go. Other than that, kudos to Christopher Elliott for creating On Your Side.

[Image from Flickr/AComment]

Ryanair pushing ahead with $6 standing room only seats and paid bathrooms

by Scott Carmichael on

Last year, Ryanair first mentioned their concept for several rows of standing only seats. The idea back then was to install special standing seats and offer them for a reduced fee.

The new seating innovation has not been implemented yet, but Michael O’Leary wants everyone to know that he is still very serious about it, and hopes to pay for the new seats with proceeds from the paid bathrooms he also hopes to install soon.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about Ryanair, it is that even though most of their ideas sound like crackpot ways to generate some free PR, they take their silly ideas quite seriously.

Ryanair knows that there is virtually no limit to the inconveniences passengers will put up with in exchange for crazy low airfares. When your flight is just a few hours out of a one week vacation, the savings on airfare leave you with more money for food, booze and tacky souvenirs.

With the new seats, between 40 and 50 extra passengers can be loaded on the planes, pushing things to the absolute maximum the plane is approved to carry. Still, the big question is whether you’d be willing to pay an insanely low fare in exchange for a standing seat on a flight of several hours.

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[Image from AFP/Getty Images]