Wizz Air’s UK boss hopes to undercut Gulf carriers on Middle East flights

Marion Geoffroy predicted Airbus A321XLR planes will ‘revolutionise’ air travel from a cost perspective.

Flight prices between the UK and the Middle East could be slashed to a quarter of current levels once Wizz Air receives new aircraft, the airline has claimed (Alamy/PA)

Flight prices between the UK and the Middle East could be slashed to a quarter of current levels once Wizz Air receives new aircraft, the airline has claimed.

Marion Geoffroy, UK managing director of Wizz Air, predicted the Airbus A321XLR planes will “revolutionise” air travel from a cost perspective.

The enhanced fuel capacity of the jets means they will have a maximum range of up to 11 hours flying time and burn up to 30% less fuel per seat than previous generation aircraft, according to Airbus.

Wizz Air has 47 of the planes on order and expects to begin receiving them from February next year.

Ms Geoffroy said she hopes this will enable Wizz Air to launch new routes between the UK and Middle East countries already served by the airline from continental Europe, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

She told the PA news agency: “We will be looking at connecting the UK with the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region, the Middle East, where we have a strong brand already and where we do have a sister airline, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi.

If you look at the current fares on these routes and the fares that we could offer, it's a huge reduction

Marion Geoffroy, Wizz Air

“This is a very important region for us. From the UK that would definitely be a potential network that we would explore, because it makes a lot of sense to be connecting places where we do have a brand, we do have a presence, we do have customers.

“We would be offering a completely different product (from other airlines), a point-to-point product from the UK to the Middle East.

“If you look at the current fares on these routes and the fares that we could offer, it’s a huge reduction.

“It would be the same simple product as we currently offer. We have the lowest cost in Europe at the moment so that wouldn’t change.”

Wizz Air already serves some Middle East destinations from the UK, such as Tel Aviv, Israel and Amman, Jordan.

Asked about the potential size of fare reductions compared with carriers already operating flights, Ms Geoffroy said: “If you take for example, Luton to Amman, when we entered the market we were three or four times cheaper compared to the incumbent carriers.

“So that would probably be the scale.”

Emirates and Etihad are among the airlines already operating flights between the UK and Middle Eastern airports Wizz Air may target.