Wizz Air has revealed its new long-haul route from Gatwick Airport to Saudi Arabia with tickets starting from less than £140.
The budget airline announced today it will launch a fleet of new Airbus A321XLR jets – along with the new route from London.
Gatwick – UK’s second busiest airport – will get the first extra long-haul jet when Wizz Air receives the 47 planes it has ordered from the manufacturer.
The airline revealed the new route from Gatwick, West Sussex, to the Saudi port city of Jeddah due to launch at the end of March next year.
Jozsef Varadi, the chief executive of Wizz Air, announced the new plane and route amid ‘a challenging environment’ caused by recent delays at Gatwick Airport.
He said at a press conference: ‘Air traffic control remains challenging. The UK is a testimonial of the issue, but it’s not limited to the UK and Gatwick Airport.’
He said air traffic control staff being laid off during the Covid pandemic, the global technology outage and ‘geographical challenges’ caused by Russian airspace closure have also caused problems.
Wizz Air has made headlines recently after it was named the worst UK airline for delays for the third year in a row, followed by Turkish Airlines and Tui, according to an analysis by PA news agency.
The airline said previously it had made ‘significant improvements’ and there is ‘still work to be done.’
Varadi said the airline is ‘trying to address’ delays.
The airline boss said the A321XLR is ‘the most cost-efficient aircraft in its class,’ adding that basing its first long-haul plane at Gatwick was a ‘natural, strategic decision.’
‘We are very excited,’ he said about the Jeddah route.
The A321XLR with is enhanced fuel capacity due to an extra tank burns up to 30% less fuel per seat than the previous model, Airbus said.
Along with the Jeddah route, Wizz Air has also announced a new route from Milan to Abu Dhabi using the new planes.
The A321XLR boasts up to eight-hour flight capacity compared to six hours on the previous model, while it has 239 seats like the earlier A321neo.
The Gatwick to Jeddah route will be Wizz Air’s longest UK route, with single tickets starting from £134.99.
Flight time to Jeddah will be around seven hours overnight on the outbound route. While the seats will be non-reclinable, Varadi said they are ‘ergonomic’ and offer a ‘sense of space.’
It comes after three days of disruption have plagued Gatwick, prompting the Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary to call for the head of air traffic control to step down.
While Wizz Air declined to reveal the cost of each new long-haul plane, industry estimates have put the price tag of an A321neo model at around £98.9 million.
British Airways has also announced flights to Jeddah from its base at Heathrow Airport – due to launch on November 4.
Wizz Air boss Varadi commented on the BA ticket pricing, saying the airline ‘decides on how they price themselves, and we decide how we price ourselves.’
‘But one thing I know is my cost is a third of British Airways’ cost,’ he added.
Wizz Air has 223 aircraft, while British Airways boasts 299 planes.
The budget airline employs more than 8,200 staff while BA workforce is approximately 35,000 people.
British Airways flies to 80 countries while Wizz Air covers destinations in 54 countries.
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