The absurd routing of the Wizz Air flight to the Maldives.

Wizz Air, with its more than 600 routes from 25 airports, is one of the Low-Cost carriers most widespread in Europe, in Italy it flies from 14 airports between north and south.

But the carrier is not limited to Europe, In fact, it recently closed a joint venture with the state-owned Abu Dhabi Development Holding, launching a new airline based in the United Arab Emirates: from here it routes to Europe, such as Catania, and many other destinations in the Persian Gulf area and beyond, for example, the Maldives.

The new connection connects Abu Dhabi to Male and is operated with an Airbus A321neo:

• Abu Dhabi - Male departure at 1:30 p.m. with arrival at 7:50 p.m.
• Male - Abu Dhabi departure 8:45 p.m. with arrival 1:35 a.m., so next day

Doing two calculations, it can be seen that the flight as the crow flies is about 3.000 km, but Wizz Air takes more than 5 hrs.. how come?

Wizz Air in this flight actually travels more than 4,200 kilometers! Here is the tract:

The flight has almost the 40% more road than the distance live, that is, to the same flight operated by all other carriers.

For comparison, the Etihad Airways flight, which operates the same route with a Boeing 787-9, tough one hour abundant less from Abu Dhabi and 3.30 hours to Abu Dhabi, covering just over 3,000 km.

From the flight path we can see that Wizz Air does not fly direct, but skirts India, why?

The reason is quickly stated: the Airbus A321neo does not have the certification ETOPS, That is, an "extended dual range engine operations performance standard," what does it mean?

In much simpler words, ETOPS certification is required for airlines to be able to fly very large distances over the waters, where there are no deviation points nearby. This certification is clearly hefty for companies, and Wizz Air, operating mainly in Europe, has never particularly needed it. Here, then, in the absence of this certification Wizz Air is forced to go "round the goose" and passengers have to endure more than 70 extra minutes on a plane that is significantly less comfortable than a 787.

The problem, however, is that this route has an expenditure of time and especially of fuel quite high, a fact that runs counter to the carrier's claims that it is the most green Of the world.

We will see if Wizz Air will achieve the certification or not, certainly if the goal is to expand its network beyond European borders then will have no choice!