Review of Wizz Air flight Reykjavík → Budapest in Economy

My home airport was Budapest between 2000 and 2015, and the airline serving most destinations from there is Wizzair. My current home airport is Keflavík in Iceland, also served by Wizzair. This was my 78th flight with Wizzair so this flight report is not only about this particular flight but my overall experience with this airline.

My opinion is that Wizzair gets as good as a low-cost airline can get. They have a new fleet (mostly A320's, but also a few A321's) with new seats; their fares are quite low most of time; I only had a serious delay maybe once or twice; and the cabin crew is, although not overwhelmingly friendly, well trained, and their service is quite well standardised and efficient. It is of course no Qatar Airways business class, but is is indeed very good value. To enjoy flying with Wizzair I recommend the following: familiarise yourself with your luggage policy which is different from most other airlines; buy priority boarding (cheap); and buy extra legroom (cheap).

The particularity of Keflavík Airport that it has a lot of departing flights between 6am and 8am (Icelandair and Wow flights departing to Europe), between 3pm and 6pm (the same airlines departing to the US and Canada) and in the summer between midnight and 1am (low-cost airlines departing to Europe). But Wizzair's flight to Budapest leaves at 19.20 when the airport is quite empty.



Most people check-in on-line and only have hand luggage, so there is almost never a line at check-in.



While Keflavík Airport is quite nice and modern, the options are not so great if you want to have a proper meal before your flight. It's better to eat before security in the arrival area.



After eating a tasty chicken meal I went upstairs. I got through security in a few minutes. The departure area is actually quite nice:



Boarding started on-time and priority boarding was respected, although we had to wait for a few minutes on the passenger bridge. Wizzair operated this flight with one of their new A321 aircrafts. The load on this flight was 210 pax for 230 seats. The emergency exit row looks like this:



Legroom is huge



No meals or drinks are included of course but you can buy snacks, sandwiches and drinks on-board. Wizzair used to sell higher quality snacks as well but unfortunately they discontinued, I guess there was not enough demand. Here is the menu:



I had a noodle soup. This is definitely very far from fine dining, or even from eating properly, but this is still the best choice alongside their sandwiches. The crew was polite and efficient.



We arrived before schedule after a flight time of only 4.00 hours. I have flown this route (or the return leg) about 80 times with Wizzair and other airlines and the actual flight time is always between 3.50 and 4.30 (scheduled flight time is longer). Some advice for when you arrive to Budapest: don't change money at the airport as the exchange rates are very bad.