Wizz to restart services from Luton from May 1st

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  • MartynSinclair
    Participant

    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-wizz-air-hldgs-idUKKCN2270HL

    On the day the UK reaches 20,000 hospital deaths and the Prime Ministers briefing reinforces the stay at home rules – Wizz plans to take to the air again next Friday with scheduled services from Luton to several European destinations.

    Mixed messages spring to mind..


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    Would the journey to/from LTN be classified as “essential” on May 1 ?


    FaroFlyer
    Participant

    [postquote quote=996814][/postquote]

    From, yes. To, probably not:-)


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    [quote quote=996814]Would the journey to/from LTN be classified as “essential” on May 1 ?[/quote]

    More importantly, will anyone actually be asking passengers if their travel is essential?

    Out of the 5 countries mentioned in the press release (UK, Romania, Tenerife, Portugal and Hungary), 3 have restrictions and/or compulsory medical checks on entry, one confirms they will allow passengers entry, from the UK if the FCO deems it safe to do so/essential and one stands out and says, if the aeroplane lands we let em all in, unchecked!

    It will be interesting to see over the next few days if Wizz’s plans are approved/endorsed or otherwise by the UK Government or whether there will be any restrictions.

    It does though appear to be contradictory to the Government’s do not travel to second homes policy and essential travel only.


    capetonianm
    Participant

    Essential might be :

    – returning to country of permanent residence
    – travelling for medical treatment
    – travelling to visit a vulnerable person


    GivingupBA
    Participant

    [postquote quote=996814][/postquote]

    I suppose it depends on the reason for your flight: I’m sure flying on holiday won’t count. But repatriation (e.g. a Pole returning home to Poland) would count, I’m sure. And many other travellers e.g. on business can presumably justify their journey if stopped and questioned.

    Such journeys have been on my mind recently – I’m now in South Korea and have to fly from Seoul to Heathrow (which is my return ticket route) soonish. Then I have to get myself from Heathrow to the north of England (probably in a rented car) – on which journey I will no doubt be stopped and questioned. As I’ll be repatriating myself to the UK, and returning home, I suppose I’ll be OK and allowed through. These are strange and unsettling days, though.

    I know my road journey home from LHR (250+ miles) will look unnecessarily long to some – but I’m not going to ditch my expensive air ticket and buy a new one to a nearer northern city.


    MarcusGB
    Participant

    I suppose like all others, including Businesses and individuals, are now pushing, to be released from restrictions and get their own income going again.
    With moves all over Europe and clear plans being phased in by many Governments, the Government needs a bit of a “Push”, if we are to phase in a staggered start to return to life, but in many ways different.
    It is a balance between keeping people from being infected, disabled or dying from it as in too many tragic losses

    Many Country’s Airlines have been given support by their Governments, but this is only for a few months. So many plan to restart services during May or June.
    I think the Far East is a little ahead of the events, matters having started that side, and so seeing times when they could say it has now been controlled.
    It would be a start, for the EU to have some sort of common acceptance, and methods they want to use to get us going again within the EU Countries.
    But if this were to happen, it would be very discriminatory.
    Carrying medical certificates etc at this stage is completely useless, as we have yet to know if the virus remains in the body and can be reacted.
    If the antibodies to prevent another episode, or simply trigger again what is there.
    We simply do not know enough about this Virus still, it is very early days.

    Until there are common agreements and similar “unlocking” situations in parallel countries, i cannot see Airlines with the same airport procedures all agreed between them, before the rest of us can travel. Hotels and normal everyday businesses are on the brink here, so i do understand this balance and push between the Economy and people’s income, balancing with the general public health issues.

    What i do hear agreed medically, is that “Covid-19 is not going to go away, we are going to have to live with it”. Hospitals will continue for some time admitting patients, perhaps into designated Hospitals, so that the “Stopped NHS work” elsewhere, can resume, catch up, and be Covid- 19 minimal places, if that is possible.

    Until a vaccine is in place, nothing is certain. And we still have no set way of treating it, other than pretty brutal and dangerous, debilitating ITU and Intense Hospitalisation, likely. There is not tablet or medication in a singular sense. So we still have no set treatment.
    What we have, is a delayed outbreak, and bought time shielding, to find out more on a Vaccine, set Treatment plan, even set diagnostics and symptoms.
    That simply means, the rest of us are going to get it at some stage, to ??? whatever degree, just at different stages, and hopefully more set established medical approaches, treatments, care.
    You may not get this by right, if we travel to another country, without having to pay, other than being a British Citizen here! Insurers will not cover a known pre-existing probability as C-19.

    It would be a good sensible way not for Airlines to lead us, before we know if normal life at the destination is open yet or not.

    These are not rescue flights, they have been ongoing with large National Airlines.
    I think Wizz are simply trying to start to rescue themselves, as other Airlines are also desperate too.
    Limited style of travel, at airports with procedures, on board with no meal services, crew in forms of PPE, and arrival Airport formalities, will not make the first Air travels very pleasant at all i fear…
    Air Travel will have to be phased in with regional or country to country agreements to start, with some aspect of a parallel living at each end.

    IATA have said it may take years to return to travelling in the numbers we used too, and is not going to be quick.
    Many Airlines, tourism, travel, hotel businesses, simply will not make it through to that far away, sadly.


    nevereconomy
    Participant

    I have to ask myself just how many business trips are really essential ? Surely most tasks can be accomplished from afar using current technology. I can see if you are the only engineer qualified to maintain a certain piece of machinery located in another country, that might be essential, but to do a sales pitch or discuss a merger – certainly not essential these days in my book. What appears to be happening in the UK is business deciding the schedule for the lockdown lifting – B & Q has started it and where I live there is definitely less strict observance of the rules by the general populace. I do fear for a sudden resurgence.


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    It’s extraordinary that a firm is able to restart its operations, which will involve hundreds of staff across many other different companies simply by saying it’s operating an essential service. If Wizz have the self authority to make this decision, why cant a pub define it’s service as essential and create spaces 6 ft apart for a limited number of customers and reopen, after all off licenses are providing essential services, thankfully.

    The FCO says “essential travel only” – wouldn’t any airline (and passengers) have to justify their operations or travel were essential to ensure insurance policies were in force for that particular route or journey.

    I wonder whether our boys in blue or airline staff will be checking passengers motives for travel & also the position of passengers using Luton as a transit point to somewhere else.


    FaroFlyer
    Participant

    Martin Sinclair asked:
    ” If Wizz have the self authority to make this decision, why cant a pub define it’s service as essential and create spaces 6 ft apart for a limited number of customers and reopen, after all off licenses are providing essential services, thankfully.”

    There is a little roadside bar on the way to our nearest village. It has no frontage or garden, and normally the few elderly locals that use it sit on plastic chairs on the pavement. Portugal permits restaurants and cafes to offer take away, so this morning I noticed that the enterprising owners of this bar still have the front door closed, but now offer take away through a window. The elderly locals, quite a few of them in fact, are buying a bottle of beer, and taking it a metre or so away, socially distancing them selves from the window:-)


    K1ngston
    Participant

    [postquote quote=996812][/postquote]

    Martyn my son is heading to TLV next Sunday on Whizz to start his new career there and has been waiting to get a flight to be able to do so, he will have to go into immediate 14 day lockdown but like me he has an Israeli passport and can enter the country where his long term girlfriend who is also heading out cannot. So for me if its essential to get home, to kick start careers or even get back to work etc I am all for it, we have to slowly get the world moving again or we will never get back to a semblance of normality… To me it depends on the destinations and lets be frank there are plenty of locations that are at a better stage than the UK!


    Mark Caswell
    Keymaster

    See also our news piece here, with a list of the initial routes Wizz Air will be operating:

    Wizz Air to restart flights from Luton this week


    nevereconomy
    Participant

    I would like to get on with my life, too, but I can see that restarting an airline opens up all kinds of avenues for spread of a virus. I am afraid that going to a new job in another country does not current fall into the essential category. How the destination country handles an arriving passenger is totally irrelevant.

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