Wizz Air CEO Blames Business Seats for Aviation’s CO2 Headache
Wizz Air CEO Blames Business Seats for Aviation’s CO2 Headache
(Bloomberg) -- Wizz Air Holdings Plc, Europe’s fastest-growing low-cost airline, escalated a spat with full-service rivals over carbon emissions, saying their reliance on lucrative business-class fares is at the heart of the industry’s problems with environmental campaigners.
Airlines like Deutsche Lufthansa AG, which has attacked discounters for stimulating non-vital travel, rely on transporting corporate flyers in heavy seats with a CO2 footprint many times that of economy berths, Wizz Chief Executive Officer Jozsef Varadi said in an interview Thursday. They also fly older, thirstier jets with wasteful low-density layouts, he added.
“He’s talking absolute rubbish,” Varadi said of Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr, who labeled low-cost fares ecologically irresponsible and to blame for making aviation a target for criticism. “The model of legacy carriers is based on carrying as many people as possible in business class, and on connecting flights, both of which are inefficient and bad for the environment.”
Wizz emits about 50 grams of carbon per passenger-kilometer, versus around 90 for network carriers, according to Varadi, who also said calls for a clampdown on air travel just as developing nations are embracing leisure flights reveals “the arrogance of Western Europe.” People there fly about five times as often as East Europeans, he said.
The CEO spoke after Hungary-based Wizz reported a 30% jump in first-half profit and said the full-year figure will be at the upper end of a guided range. Varadi plans to lift second-half capacity 22%, up from the 18% previously planned, just as most other European carriers are reining in growth.
--With assistance from Anna Edwards.
To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Jasper in London at cjasper@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Andrew Noël, John Bowker
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