Air Malta marketing manager's former airline 'not on the verge of bankruptcy'

Clarified with comments from Wizz Air management on Friday, 13 January 2011.

Since its inception in 2003, Wizz Air has registered losses of €78 million. Yet in October 2011, its founder Melinda Kecskes was appointed general, marketing and brand manager at Air Malta.

Kecskes is responsible for the national airline's marketing and brand strategy. Philip Saunders, chief commercial officer at Air Malta had boasted: "Melinda brings with her a wealth of knowledge. She has a broad understanding of the challenges and opportunities involved in successfully developing new airline brands."

In the statement announcing her appointment, Air Malta underlined the fact that Kecskes was one of the founders of Wizz Air, a low cost airline operating in Central and Eastern Europe. Air Malta exultantly declared that at Wizz Air she was responsible for branding and marketing where she developed the Wizz Air brand and defined all elements of the customer journey.

In October, Air Malta said Kecskes had "successfully launched Wizz Air in 23 countries in Europe and spearheaded the annual marketing strategy, budget and communication plan including objective setting and strategies for building brand awareness and driving sales through cost efficient communication."

What Air Malta and Kecskes failed to mention is that Wizz Air is also reported to be a loss-making airline. In 2009, the Budapest Business Journal reported that the low-cost Budapest-based airline recorded group-level losses of €9.5m in the business year which ended in March 2009.

According to a recent article by the Slovakian newspaper Ekonomika, Wizz Air is on the brink of bankruptcy, having never recorded a profit since 2003. The Slovakian newspaper said the airline incurred losses which total €78 million since commencing operations.

Wizz Air has however refuted suggestions that it is on the verge of bankruptcy. "Wizz Air is the sixth largest low-cost carrier in Europe and the market leader in terms of passenger numbers of any airline in a number of our base countries. Wizz Air had a very strong cash posiition and operates to a long-term investment plan," a spokesperson for the airline told MaltaToday.

"By way of note, in 2011 Wizz Air carrid over 11 million passengers representing 15% growth year on year - one of the highest growth rates in the European airline industry - and is average load factor was 84%. Three new operating bases were opened, in Belgrade, Vilnius and Tirgu Mures, and currently Wizz Air employes 1,500 people in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Lithuania and Switzerland. In addition, the company has created approximately 11,000 jobs in industries that serve or benefit from Wizz Air's operation," the airline spokesperson said.

However, since it started operating in 2003, Wizz Air has come under a barrage of criticism over its quality of service and allegedly poor customer support service. In 2009 a group of disgruntled customers set up a webpage called wizzairsucks.com. The site exposes problems customers face when flying Wizz Air.

The online forum lists a number of complaints, troubles, fraud stories, lawsuits, and other causes of customer dissatisfaction. The site claims that the airline does not respect passengers' rights and regularly violates European law on compensation and assistance to air travellers.

Wizz Air had sued the persons behind the webpage claiming the domain name infringed trademark laws. However the courts ruled in favour of the webpage owners.

At the time of going to print, neither Kecskes nor Air Malta management representatives were available for comment.