As big airlines retrench, some carriers detect an opening

For many of the world’s big airlines, the coronavirus pandemic is an existential threat. For Wizz Air, a European budget carrier, it is an opportunity. On a map behind his desk, founder and CE József Váradi has marked with red pins airports across the Continent that he is targeting for expansion. Since the pandemic started grounding flights, the Budapest-based airline has announced plans to open eight new bases, including in Milan and Dortmund, Germany, in the next eight weeks. That is expected to amount to 100 new routes. While the global aviation industry isn’t forecasting a return to 2019 demand until 2023, Váradi predicts his airline by then will be 50% bigger than it was before the crisis. In the US, low-cost Allegiant Travel, which mostly flies from smaller cities to sunny vacation destinations, said it could snap up jets at bargain prices as bigger rivals retrench and sell aircraft. “Our phone rings daily with deals,” Allegiant CEO Maurice Gallagher Jr. wrote in a letter to shareholders late last month. “I expect we will thrive in this changed environment.” In times of crisis, low-cost discount carriers often benefit, while the bigger, network carriers—with typically fatter organizations and higher costs—are forced to retrench. That is happening again, but on steroids, both because of the scale of today’s crisis and the unusual way demand for tickets is starting to return as lockdowns loosen.<br/>