WIZZ Air has had to compensate customers to the tune of £1.2m after the CAA received a high volume of complaints about the lowcost airline rejecting refund claims. One customer went as far as sending bailiffs to Luton Airport to secure his refund.

Management have cited "unprecedented operating challenges" dating from the 2022 "air-mageddon", when the industry struggled to resume regular service following the heights of COVID-19. But YouGov BrandIndex data shows that, while airlines have improved their perceptions compared to two years ago, opinions of Wizz Air have worsened. On average, Index scores (a measure of overall brand health) for UK airlines were at 6.4 two years ago (21 Jan 2022). At their lowest, they had fallen to 4.9 (23 July 2022), but our most recent data (21 Jan 2024) shows an improvement to 7.3.

Wizz Air, by comparison, has seen scores fall from -1.5 to a low of -8.4 (18 April 2023), only recovering to -5.7 as of our most recent data.

Digging into Impression scores, which measure general sentiment, shows that airlines on average have seen an improvement of +1.0 points over the past two years - with scores rising from 7.8 to 8.8 (with a nadir of 4.9 on 25 July 2022). Wizz Air's scores have gone from -2.4 to -8.4 (with a low point of -12.8 on 19 April 2023).

Same story with Recommend scores. While the industry average has seen a small improvement from 6.3 to 6.9 - hitting a low of 4.6 (23 July 2022) during the post-COVID air-mageddon - Wizz Air's have plunged from a bad -1.0 to a worse -5.1. A slight recovery on the rock-bottom of -8.7 (8 May 2023) but still negative.

It would be hard for Wizz Air to attribute its ailing performance solely to the pandemic: it has been underperforming the industry average for the past two years. If there is any consolation to be found in our data, it's that Ryanair - whose most recent Index scores are at -19.7 - is doing worse. Stephan Shakespeare is the co-founder of YouGov

(c) 2024 City A.M., source Newspaper