Wizz Air, the Hungary-based ultra low-cost carrier and one of Europe’s largest airlines, has hired a Boeing 737-700 from Ukrainian LCC SkyUp Airlines.
The news was broken by Romania’s main aviation news website, BoardingPass.ro, on their Twitter page, mentioning «probably because of a staffing crisis».
1/ Probabil din cauza crizei de personal, Wizz Air a închiriat un Boeing 737-700NG (UR-SQO) de la compania ucraineană SkyUp Airlines.
Din 30 iunie 2022 acest avion operează o parte din zborurile Wizz Air din și spre Sofia (Bulgaria). pic.twitter.com/ZUTCnn7ieQ
— BoardingPass (@BoardingPassRO) July 4, 2022
The aircraft, which was based by Wizz in Sofia, Bulgaria, is registered UR-SQO and is a 737-800 configured for 189 passengers in a single class. The aircraft was transfered from Varna to Sofia on the 29th, operating the first flight for the Hungarian low-cost, W64437/4438 to Larnaca and back, on the day after.
Founded four years ago with little low-cost competition in the country, SkyUp managed to benefit from that market environment to have a meteoric growth, becoming the second largest local carrier, after Ukraine International Airlines.
With the war in Ukraine, SkyUp begged for help as the Summer season in Europe arrived, and the airline is currently wet-leasing eight of its eleven aircraft, according to Planespotters.net.
On the other side of the table, Wizz has been pushing the limits as far as staffing goes, with CEO József Váradi even being criticized by entities for, in an internal video to its crews, asking fatigue levels to be reduced in the name of reducing the «reputational damage of the [Wizz] brand».
In this respect, bringing wet-lease aircraft may help to relieve their reliability problems in the peak of one of the most challenging Summer seasons of all time in European aviation.
