How Wizz Air became the UK's worst airline
Rapidly expanding Wizz Air has received the lowest score and a string of one and two star ratings in Which?’s annual airline survey.
It received a one-star rating for boarding, cabin environment and seat comfort in the survey of more than 8,000 travellers.
Separately, data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) also showed that it was one of the least punctual airlines, with just 56% of flights arriving into the UK on time. Over 2% of flights were more than three hours late.
Ryanair, the worst airline for several years previously in Which? surveys, got a slightly better customer score of 52% and was both more punctual and had fewer cancellations.
See the full results of our best and worst airlines survey to find out how well British Airways, easyJet and others performed.
Wizz Air launches routes – then closes them
Wizz Air describes itself as ‘Europe’s fastest growing airline’. It’s been flying from the UK since 2004, specialising in routes to Eastern Europe, but in recent years it’s expanded to destinations such as North Africa, Turkey, Spain and Italy.
However, not all of its expansion has been successful. It opened bases at Doncaster Sheffield Airport and Cardiff Airport and then closed them soon afterwards.
It also cancelled a lot more flights than rivals such as easyJet, Jet2 and Ryanair. During the period of our survey, 1.8% of its UK flights were cancelled less than 24 hours before departure, compared with 0.5% for Jet2 and Ryanair and 1.3% for easyJet.
Wizz Air worse than Ryanair?
Many of Wizz Air’s policies are similar to those of its rival. Like Ryanair it charges passengers if they want to bring any luggage that won’t fit under the seat in front. It also has a long list of other charges for services such as airport check-in (€40), name changes (€50) and sitting with travel companions (€10).
Ryanair was rated as three stars for customer service by survey respondents, while Wizz got just two.
Both airlines received just one star for seat comfort, although the seat pitch (the distance to the chair in front of you) was even less generous with Wizz Air – two inches less than on Ryanair, according to data from seatguru.com.
Ryanair | 52% | 65% | 0.50% | ★ | ★ | ★ | ★★ | ★ | ★★★ | ★★★ |
Wizz Air | 48% | 56% | 1.80% | ★ | ★ | ★★ | ★★ | ★ | ★★ | ★★ |
USING THE TABLE On-time Percentage of all scheduled flights arriving into the UK within 15 minutes of time due, according to the CAA (Oct 2021 to Sept 2022) or cancelled within 24 hours of scheduled departure in the same period. Where airlines have both UK and EU subsidiaries, the results for both are combined Boarding The boarding process – waiting time, queues, etc Food and drink Range and quality of on-board catering Customer service On-ground and on-board staff Customer score Combines overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend the airline. All ratings for economy class travel.
Wizz Air response
Wizz Air told us that a shortage of staff across the aviation industry had contributed to its poor punctuality but that it was confident that this will improve. It also said that when there are delays or cancellations it always has a representative at the sales desk to support passengers.
Jet2 the best short-haul airline
Both airlines performed far worse than the best airline, Jet2, which received a customer score of 80%, a five-star rating for customer service and four stars for boarding, cleanliness, cabin environment and value for money.
See our full best and worst airlines table to see how British Airways, easyJet and Tui were rated, as well as which airline came top for long-haul.
How we carried out the survey
In October 2022, we asked 8,046 adults (members of the Which? Connect panel and the general public) about their experiences of flying in the past two years.
