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#1 Natalie wrote the Krakow base diary that a lot of people on here have read, and I am at the same base, 18 months in, so this is the companion piece: the things she left out or that have changed.
The base now
Krakow is a mid sized Wizz base, a fair number of aircraft, mostly A321neo now, which matters because the neo is a bigger cabin (239 seats) and the service is longer. The network from Krakow is the UK, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, the Balkans, a bit of the Middle East. Mostly two and four sector days, some night stops in the UK and Italy.
The roster
Published monthly, around the 20th for the next month. Five on, three off is the rough pattern but it flexes. Earliest sign on 4:15, latest finish around 1:00. Standby blocks of three or four days in a row and those are the ones that ruin plans. I get around 9 to 11 days off a month. Swaps are done through the app and the base group and they are easy if you are flexible and impossible if you only want to give away Sundays.
The money, in złoty, honestly
Basic for my grade is around 4,000 PLN gross. Sector pay and the duty related allowances double that in a busy month. Sales commission on the trolley adds a few hundred if you try. Net in a summer month: 6,500 to 7,500 PLN. Net in February: about 4,500. Krakow rent for a room in a shared flat is 1,500 to 2,200 PLN, a small flat alone 2,800 plus. So it is livable and it is not rich. Crew who commute from cheaper towns nearby do better.
The culture
Wizz is fast and blunt. Communication comes as app notifications and short emails. The base management is accessible and direct. There is a real focus on on time performance and it filters down to the galley: the turnaround is choreographed and you are expected to hit it. Crew who like structure and pace do well. Crew who want a chat with a manager every week do not.
What Natalie left out
The uniform is provided but the shoes are your problem and they wear out in six months on the neo. The crew room at Krakow is small and everyone knows everything about everyone. The Hungarian head office decisions arrive with no warning and change your month. And the summer is genuinely relentless: I did 96 sectors in July last year.
What has changed
More neos, so longer services and more passengers per crew. The training bond terms have been updated, ask for the current version. And the base has grown, so the crew room is now two crew rooms and the gossip has a larger area to cover.
Would I stay
For now. The money is fine for Poland, the flying is honest, the days off are real, and Krakow is a good city to be tired in. I will probably look at the Gulf at some point like everyone does. But 18 months in I am not looking yet.
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#2 Natalie here, and this is fair. I left out the shoes because I had blocked out the memory. Two pairs a year is right. The neo cabin point is real too, the A320 days felt like a holiday once I had done a month on the 321.
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#3 Warsaw base, and our numbers are within 10 percent of yours on every line, higher rent. The 'app notifications and short emails' culture description is the most accurate summary of Wizz management I have read.
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#4 Budapest, and I want to say for the international readers: the złoty and forint numbers look tiny in euros and that is not the point. It is about what they buy where you live. In Krakow or Budapest a summer month at Wizz is a comfortable local salary.
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#5 Reapplying to Wizz in October after failing the group stage in spring, Warsaw, and posts like this are why. The standby blocks thing is the only part that worries me. Three or four days of standby in a row is a lot of not knowing.
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#7 Bucharest assessment in three weeks and this is exactly the base level detail I needed. Thank you for the honest money numbers in the local currency.
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#8 Polish, different airline now, but I did two years at Wizz. The 'Hungarian head office decisions arrive with no warning' line made me laugh out loud because it is so true and it is the reason I left. The flying I liked. The surprises I did not.
