Wizz Air, the European budget carrier is reinstating its policy of fuel hedging as prices continue to soar in recent months. Chief Executive József Váradi said: "This (hedging) will allow us to focus on what we are best at - attracting consumers into our franchise at the lowest fares versus the competition, enabled by lowest cost, operated by the youngest fleet in a fast growing region,"
Varadi caused controversy in recent days after claiming the carrier was "fully staffed" and the mass disruption over the last few weeks in the UK and around Europe was purely the fault of airports not having sufficient security staff, baggage handlers and air traffic controllers. "It's coming from the dysfunctioning of the supply chain in certain areas"
He has also caused concern and outrage among flying staff for criticising staff being tired and accused them of not doing all they could. "I understand that fatigue is a potential outcome of the issues but once we are starting stabilising the rosters, we also need to take down the fatigue rate", he told them. "I mean, we cannot run this business when every fifth person of a base reports sickness because the person is, is fatigued. We are all fatigued but sometimes it is required to take the extra mile."
Many staff accuse him of only caring about the bottom line, profits and his own bonus payments when he told staff they were damaging the reputation of the airline “It is reputational damage of the brand and it is the other financial damage, the transactional damage, because we have to pay compensation for that."
The safety impact of pilots and cabin crew working when fatigued could be catastrophic Unions have warned, leading to one saying asking pilots to fly fatigued is like handing your car keys to a drunk driver. Others have called for an investigation, especially when considering many Wizz ‘flight crew’ have rosters over recent days that have been close to the very limit of what is the legally allowable amount of working hours. The airline responded to media criticism and coverage by saying the airline would never be compromised on safety issues, however there are currently seven instances of safety concerns being ignored or rules breached being investigated.
“There is a culture of fear in the crew room now,” one UK based flight crew for the airline said. “I’ve had back to back flights and duty hours on the bare minimum rest allowed, yet I can’t complain cuz if I do, they will just wipe my hours down to zero.”
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