A Birmingham Airport carrier named the “worst performing airline” in the UK has asked passengers for “trust”. Hungarian Wizz Air – which came top of the pile for flight delays for two years in a row – issued a message to travellers this summer.
Marion Geoffroy, the firm’s managing director, said bosses had reviewed “every single aspect” of the company’s operations and promised things would be better. She said it had overhauled flight schedules, rostering and the availability of spare aircraft parts since 2022.
In an interview with the PA news agency, Ms Geoffroy said passengers could count on Wizz and should continue to book tickets. Wizz Air operates flights from eight UK airports including Birmingham, Edinburgh, Gatwick and Luton.
READ MORE: Birmingham Airport strike countdown as workers to walkout in less than 24 hours
Asked about the airline’s performance during the last two years, Ms Geoffroy said: “We do apologise. We don’t want this to happen again.”
She said that by operating flights as early and late in the day as possible, the airline had been able to introduce “extra buffers” involving aircraft being scheduled to remain on the ground for part of the afternoon. This, she said, limited the knock-on effect of morning delays.
But Ms Geoffroy pointed at industrial disputes as a potential cause of delay. She said: “Of course we might face some strike actions at certain airports but in terms of our operations – what we control – we’ve put a lot of strength in the entire system.”
It comes as BHX faces disruption due to strike action. Workers are set to walk out at midnight tomorrow July, 18, in a dispute about pay.
Workers in security and terminal maintenance operations will withdraw their labour in “all-out continuous action” after rejecting a revised pay offer of 10.5 per cent backdated to April 1.
A Birmingham Airport spokesperson said: “Union members have rejected a fresh pay offer of 10.5 per cent despite a recommendation to accept it from their union representatives, for whose support we are grateful. We continue to make preparations to minimise the impacts of strike action on our customers. Our advice to customers remains to arrive at the airport in line with guidance from their airline.”
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