Wizz Air has officially amended its delivery schedule with Airbus in order to allow the Hungarian budget carrier to chart a more sustainable path when it comes to the airline’s growth. Last month, Simple Flying reported that Wizz Air was in talks with the European manufacturer to defer as many as 100 of its upcoming deliveries, with the carrier’s growth beginning to stutter despite years of impressive expansion in the early to mid-2020s.
Now, the airline has confirmed its plans to push back a grand total of 88 deliveries by three fiscal years, as noted in a filing on the London Stock Exchange earlier today. The number of planes that Wizz will receive from Airbus has remained static, but, as well as changing the schedule, some models have been altered.
88 Deliveries Have Been Delayed
The filing that was made on the London Stock Exchange by Wizz Air this morning served as an official confirmation of the fact that the Hungarian budget carrier had “reached an agreement with Airbus to reschedule its current order book.” Following last month’s reports of talks between the two parties along these lines, such a deal was imminent, with the discussions between the pair said to have been at an advanced stage.
The main headline of Wizz Air’s Airbus order reshuffle is the fact that “88 deliveries originally scheduled to be delivered by fiscal year 2030 [will] be delivered by fiscal year 2033.” This three-year delay will “support the airline’s target of achieving a 10-12% seat capacity growth rate through 2030,” without overexerting itself in trying to reach the previously discussed goal of 14%. Wizz Air is in the process of withdrawing older jets, and it says:
“The fleet is scheduled to be all-neo by calendar 2029, reinforcing Wizz Air’s position as one of the world’s most emissions-efficient airlines and delivering significant fuel-burn advantages compared to previous generation aircraft.”
Confirmation Of A321XLR Cuts
An area where Wizz Air ultimately proved to try and do too much too soon was its sub-fleet of longer-range Airbus A321XLR aircraft. Having ordered 47 of these next-generation narrowbodies to support its burgeoning medium to long-haul operations, the closure of its Abu Dhabi arm prompted a rethink of this part of its order book. As such, as early as July, it was reported that Wizz was in talks to considerably cut its A321XLR order.
This development came just two months after the carrier’s first example of the type was delivered in May of 2025, but the shifting sands of the aviation world mean that a design that was once considered crucial to Wizz Air’s growth strategy will now take more of a back seat. At the time of the initial reports, Wizz Air was reportedly planning on reducing its A321XLR order book to 10-15 jets, and today’s filing confirmed that the chosen figure is 11.
This includes the five examples of the A321XLR that have already been delivered to the Hungarian low-cost carrier, meaning that it now has just six more upcoming deliveries on the cards. However, the other 36 orders won’t be shelved entirely. Instead, they will be switched to 36 orders for standard A321neos.
Wizz Air In Washington
While this comes as a hammer blow to the future of Wizz Air’s wider Airbus A321XLR operations, it hasn’t been all doom and gloom of late for these jets at the Hungarian budget carrier. Indeed, yesterday, one of these aircraft, a Wizz Air UK example registered as G-XLRD, made headlines with a trip to the US.
According to Flightradar24, the jet departed from Budapest (BUD) at 08:34 yesterday morning, touching down just under four hours later at 11:31 local time at Reykjavík Keflavík International Airport (KEF) in Iceland. After 92 minutes on the ground, it took to the skies again at 13:08 local time to fly to the US. The second leg of its unlikely transatlantic trip, as pictured above, saw it fly to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD).
Here, it landed at 14:12 local time after just over six hours in the air. According to Aviation 24, the reason for this journey was to take Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to DC on a government trip. The A321XLR can fly from Budapest to DC nonstop, but, per Aerospace Global News, it stopped in Iceland to avoid running low on fuel amid prevailing jetstream headwinds. All in all, it’s definitely not your average governmental transatlantic trip!
