Wizz Air will discontinue its flights between London Luton Airport and Ljubljana as the budget carrier continues to battle with dozens of grounded aircraft due to problems with Pratt & Whitney engines on its new-generation Airbus aircraft. Although Wizz initially planned to suspend services between Luton and Ljubljana until the summer, it will now discontinue the route altogether, with the final flight to take place next Tuesday. Initially, the airline planned to operate three weekly flights between the two cities this summer, then revised its plan down to two weekly, before completely removing the route from its network. All flights were to be operated by the carrier’s 239-seat Airbus A321neo aircraft.
Ljubljana will continue to be linked to two of London’s other airports. This summer, British Airways will operate up to seven weekly flights between London Heathrow and the Slovenian capital, while easyJet will run up to six weekly rotations from London Gatwick. Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, easyJet operated nine weekly flights from Stansted to Ljubljana in addition to its Gatwick flights. Wizz Air’s only service to Ljubljana this summer will be its recently launched subsidised flights from Skopje. The carrier will continue to run operations between the two capitals three times per week.
Wizz Air has been severely affected by the grounding of its aircraft and continues to update its summer network on a daily basis, which will impact most of its operations in the former Yugoslavia, including its two bases in Skopje and Belgrade, more on which will be published in the coming days. Wizz Air is estimating capacity growth will at best be flat this year, as new aircraft deliveries only manage to mitigate the effects of the groundings. According to Wizz, thirteen of its 180-plus Airbus aircraft were grounded as of December 31, 2023, stretching to 33 as of January 24, 2024. groundings are likely to take forty aircraft out of service by the end of the year.
