Turn on and take off, plane talk? Not quite, but Wizz Air offers some very alluring deals.
In retrospect, it’s one of those in-flight experiences that almost seems unbelievable, similar to complimentary cigars on Concorde or unlimited access to the flight deck. The US standby airpass, which was available for use anywhere on the Delta domestic network for a month, permitted limitless travel during the 1990s. Better yet, on a shoestring, Northwest Orient (now a part of Delta) allowed you to travel all over America and gain access to a number of Canadian cities.
Back then, the upfront cost was usually $499, which was a significant commitment. But the advantages continued coming: in addition to the chance to see new places and cities, most flights included meals. In addition, if you were aimless at night, you could try to score three seats on an eastbound transcontinental trip from Los Angeles or San Francisco to Atlanta or Memphis, which is home to Delta’s galactic headquarters in Atlanta, where Northwest maintained a sizable hub for many years.
The rule of the day was to show up, show your ticket, and board. The ground crew would go above and above to locate an alternate route to your final destination, which normally required changing planes in Cincinnati, if there was an unusually busy weekend (for example, a popular holiday weekend from Atlanta to Chicago) and everything was full.
However, almost all of these transactions had dried up by the beginning of the twenty-first century. It was discovered by airlines that passengers using airpasses were those who would have paid the correct amount for that LAX to ATL or SFO to MEM flight. Passengers in a hurry to get on a plane were willing to pay whatever the airline wanted. When the moment of departure drew near, airlines might raise rates instead of decrease them. Additionally, load factors, or the percentage of occupied seats, were steadily rising, making it more difficult to locate unoccupied seats.
Wizz Air has introduced the All You Can Fly subscription plan, bringing the concept to Europe and extending it by a full year.
This is the situation. Paying £445 in advance (starting on Friday, August 16) grants you a full year of deeply reduced flat-rate travel to any destination Wizz Air serves. There is a £9 fee per flight.
You have a good amount of time to prepare: 72 hours before travel. But, the earliest day you can start is September 25, so you can’t use it as an escape during the August bank holiday. Most importantly, Wizz Air does not promise that All You Can Fly membership pricing will be available for every flight it advertises.
Although I am not a buyer, nobody enjoys a cheap ticket more than I do. I usually fly about six times a year with Wizz Air, which is a great airline. Should my standby pass allow me to board each of those six flights, I would have to pay £499, which is a substantial £84 for each journey. My other preferred airlines, easyJet and British Airways, have enough overlap with the Wizz Air network that I could potentially increase the number of flights to twelve.
Using the airpass, the cost of each of those twelve would be £45. That being said, even that amount is rather similar to what I often pay on Ryanair. Rather than limit myself to a particular airline, I would rather keep the freedom to select the best time to fly.
I can understand how the plan may be alluring to those who frequently travel on routes with a fair amount of frequency. A year’s worth of flights at twice a month comes to 48, or less than £10 per flight. Even after factoring in the £9 fee for every journey, the total cost is still far lower than that of a Gatwick Express one-way ticket.
However, flights will not be available during peak hours, and if there has been a significant interruption (like the air traffic control collapse that occurred over the bank holiday in August), seats will quickly sell out. However, the possibility of spending a year in the air may be alluring to individuals who wish to travel to Europe and the Middle East and for whom the disappointment of not being able to get the preferred trip is not too great.