The Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air arrives in Norway in November. Then the plane tickets can be record cheap.
The airline will start up on 5 November with the three domestic routes Oslo-Bergen, Oslo-Trondheim and Oslo-Tromsø.
Wizz Air will also focus on domestic travel in Italy. Now the company advertises for tickets down to only one euro – around ten Norwegian kroner – for a single ticket, reports flysmart24.no. There are also a number of tickets for around 100 Norwegian kroner.
The Norwegian aviation analyst Hans Jørgen Elnæs in the company WinAir does not rule out that we will see similarly low prices when the company is in the process of the Norwegian investment. However, he does not think Wizz Air will necessarily lose money on such cheap tickets.
– The company knows that not all seats are sold anyway. Thus, some of the surplus capacity is sold for 1 euro. The actual ticket price accounts for 55 percent of Wizz Air’s revenue, the rest comes from additional services. This also applies to tickets for 1 euro, he explains to flysmart24.no.
– It provides additional income which means that the company actually receives more money from the passengers on these tickets than the euro the ticket costs, he says.
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Will consider the minimum price for Norwegian airline tickets
With the low-cost airline Wizz Air’s domestic routes in Norway, the Norwegian Pilots’ Association believes that it may be worthwhile to study a minimum price for airline tickets, NTB announced earlier in October.
In Austria, they have a minimum price of 40 euros for a plane ticket, because super-cheap tickets undermine both climate policy and livable wage standards, wrote Free Trade Union Movement last week.
The union leader in the Norwegian Pilots’ Association, Yngve Carlsen, believes this may also be worth investigating in Norway.
– This is definitely an interesting way to go. In general, it is free competition and the companies themselves who set the prices. But when some companies lower the price so that the price is about what a cup of coffee costs at Gardermoen, something is not as it should be, Carlsen told Fri Fagbevegelse.
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The newspaper writes that the Labor Party’s transport policy spokesperson, Sverre Myrli, sent a written inquiry to Minister of Transport Knut Arild Hareide if a corresponding minimum price for flights in Norway would have been allowed. Hareide replied that he only knew that the Austrian government had adopted this, from media coverage, and that it was difficult to give a clear yes / no answer to the question.
– The starting point according to the basic market regulation for air transport in the EU / EEA is that the airlines are free to determine the price of their tickets, Hareide writes in the answer.
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Says they will comply with the Norwegian regulations
But the low-cost company’s entry into Norway has provoked reactions. The Hungarian company has made it clear that they will not enter into collective agreements with trade unions. This has led to opposition in the trade union movement, and Industri Energi and Nito are among the organizations that will refuse their employees to use the company for business trips.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H) has made it clear that Wizz Air can not refuse employees to organize. She supports the boycott.
– I will not fly with a company that refuses workers to organize, Solberg said in a question and answer session in the Storting.
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The Progress Party’s parliamentary representative Erlend Wiborg, who heads the Storting’s Labor and Social Affairs Committee, for his part opposes the boycott.
– The fact that we get more companies that want to fly in Norway is good. It creates increased competition and also increases the possibility of starting air traffic from Moss Airport Rygge again, says Wiborg.
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Wizz Air itself believes they have been accused of things that are not true. The airline states that they always follow current laws.
– Wizz Air follows current laws and regulations in all countries we operate in. It is crucial and indispensable for our business. We fully respect the Norwegian working life model and will of course comply with the Norwegian regulations, said HR Director Johan Eidhagen in a press release.
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