Wizz Air Holdings Plc (LON:WIZZ), the fastest growing and one of the most sustainable European airlines, has announced that it has fully complied with the deed of undertaking signed with the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority last year following disruptions to its service in the summer of 2022.
· Wizz Air made several commitments to the regulator regarding customer claims
· The CAA has now finalised its review of claims and is satisfied the airline is compliant
· Wizz Air fully co-operated with the CAA and has invested £90m in improving operations
· The airline launched a series of new initiatives to reduce cancellations and create a better experience for its customers, resulting in improved performance
As part of the agreement with the CAA in July 2023, Wizz Air made several commitments regarding the handling of claims for costs incurred following a flight disruption. The CAA has conducted checks on a random sample of claims and has confirmed that Wizz Air is fully compliant with the agreement.
Wizz Air co-operated with the CAA throughout the process and the CAA does not intend to review any further claims. The UK CAA found no additional errors from the claims proactively re-visited by Wizz Air.
Prior to the undertakings, Wizz Air had already launched its own commitments to reduce cancellations and create a better experience for customers. The independent changes were announced in an effort to improve customer experience, and Wizz Air continues to focus on delivering for passengers.
The Company invested £90 million to improve its performance and operations in 2023, resulting in a flight completion rate of 99.24%, which is one of the best in the industry. Furthermore, 90% of refunds are now processed within five days. The airline has also now identified and paid all known County Court Judgements (CCJs).
Wizz Air UK Managing Director, Marion Geoffroy, said: “We are pleased the CAA has recognised the significant steps Wizz Air has taken to improve performance for our customers. Like all airlines in Europe, we faced unprecedented operating challenges in the summer of 2022 but the improvements we put in place have led to a better customer experience and our performance in 2023 was among the strongest in the industry. We are seeing a significant uptick in our customer satisfaction scores and we remain fully committed to continuing to improve our operations in 2024 and beyond.”
The Companyimplemented a range of structural and organisational changes in 2023, including:
· Adding spare aircraft capacity to support during disruptions
· Increased staffing at airports for operations and claim centres
· Built increased time into crew rosters and between flights to make schedules more resilient
· Doubled its operations team and split processes to be more efficient and focused on handling disruptions
· Implemented a new AI-based tool to forecast and mitigate possible disruptions
Wizz Air also invested heavily in its customer experience. Changes for 2023 included:
· Launched a fully automated refund process – 90% of claims in 2023 were completed online (compared to 20% in 2022) allowing call centre agents to spend more time on complex cases in order to resolve them faster
· 24/7 online support with a new chatbot called Amelia
· Launched new customer service channel on Twitter @AskWIZZ
· Contracted four new contact centres for increased customer service capacity
· Increased customer service agent training and quality checks to drive efficiency and quality of service
· Worked closely with ground handling providers to increase number of staff on-the-ground
