Budget airline Wizz Air last year launched an ‘all you can fly’ deal for just £426 a year – with customers able to jump on unlimited flights.
The subscription service, priced at €499 (£426), allows passengers to fly as far as the Maldives for a flat fare of £9 per journey.
Last week, the airline celebrated a year since the scheme was launched – and Wizz Air said it had been ‘overwhelmed by the extremely positive response’ for the concept.
Through the scheme, you only are able to book flights between three days (72 hours) and three hours before departure.
You can use the All You Can Fly membership to book flights at any time of year – provided you follow the restrictions.
Since its launch in September 2024, the deal has been subject to much debate.
Dubbed a ‘phenomenal success’ by bosses at the airline, some 21,000 people have stumped up €499 each to join the scheme, which allows them to jump on any flight to Wizz’s nearly 200 destinations across Europe and beyond, The Times reported.
Some are fans of the concept, citing its great value for money – however, others have said there are many restrictions and catches to the deal.
Budget airline Wizz Air last year launched an ‘all you can fly’ deal for just £426 a year – with customers able to jump on unlimited flights
One snag is that it is for last-minute trips only, and bookings must be made within 72 hours of the flight taking off. Passengers must also pay an additional fee of £9 every time they book a trip and the deal is valid for one person only.
Also, flights do not include ‘trolley bags’ to be stored in the overhead lockers and crucially it depends whether there are any seats left on the aircraft at the time of booking.
Another catch is that, while £426 a year sounds like a great deal, Wizz Air flights are cheap anyway. This means customers could need to book up three to five flights a year before making their money back.
But plenty of customers have made it worth their while.
The airline says that one traveller has used it to take 167 flights in a single year — one almost every other day.
Additionally, Kareem Osman, a 38-year-old call centre manager from Streatham, south London, says he has taken 88 trips since signing up to the deal a year ago — all for a total cost of £1,166, once booking fees and other add-ons such as baggage are included.
‘That’s £13.26 a flight,’ he told The Times. ‘It costs me more to get my train from Streatham to Gatwick airport.’
Last week, the airline celebrated a year since the scheme was launched – and Wizz Air said it had been ‘overwhelmed by the extremely positive response’ for the concept
‘It sold out first in the UK and continues to generate huge interest across Europe and beyond,’ said Yvonne Moynihan, head of Wizz Air UK. ‘What this proves is that demand for affordable travel is stronger than ever.
Wizz’s load factor — the proportion of seats taken on any given flight — runs at about 90 per cent, depending on the time of year. So many argue the ‘all you can fly’ scheme is a neat way to top up sales for the roughly 10 per cent of seats that never get sold.
Critics of the scheme, however, have said that the fact other airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet have not created similar schemes points to the fact the trend has not spread.
Some customers, however, have said they will definitely be signing up for the scheme as it gives them the opportunity to travel whenever they like for a small cost.
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