This makes the prospect of Mr Varadi receiving the £100m bonus first promised in 2021 dim. Under the terms of the deal, the Wizz chief must increase the value of the company’s shares to £120 by 2028 to receive the reward.
Mr Varady, 58, will put those problems behind him on Tuesday as the airline celebrates two decades in business at a party in Budapest attended by 3,000 staff flown in from 35 bases across Europe and the Middle East.
The message he plans to convey is that the nadir has already been reached in terms of fleet disorganization, and the number of aircraft grounded due to the engine crisis is at an all-time high.
“This will be one of the biggest events in our corporate life,” he said of the meeting. “We should feel very proud of what we have achieved and this should give us energy and pride for the future. We still have an exciting 20 years ahead of us.”
It will then return to London for a full-year results presentation on Thursday, followed by a meeting at the London Stock Exchange on Friday.
It will be his first time ringing the market opening bell. When Wizz relisted in 2015, Bill Franke, the airline’s chairman and founder of its biggest investor, the American private equity firm Indigo, got the privilege.
After that, Mr Varadi will retire to the apartment in Mayfair he has called home since the end of 2020, managing Wizz’s corporate structure, its desire to be closer to financial markets, the growth of its UK business (Luton is now its biggest base) and the ease of global travel from Heathrow.
There will be little time for rest. Mr Varadi is a few months away from completing his thesis at King’s College London as part of a Masters course in military studies which he started two years ago.
Topic: Palestinian statehood. He said he elected him long before the October 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. He declined to say that his thesis would be about the prospects for lasting peace.
The degree will be his fifth, after a BA in Business and an MA in Economics from Hungary as a youth, an LL.M from University College London and a degree in International Directorship and Management from French business school INSEAD.
“It’s purely intellectual,” he said. “You know, there was a game called Brick Breaker that I started playing and at some point it flashed that I was in the top 100 in the world. I thought, oh my god, if you have time to do this, you have time to do something else.
The military studies course, in particular, resonates for reasons beyond the pure pursuit of knowledge, recalling his days of national service in Hungary before the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.
He said: “I have always been interested in global affairs. I served in the army. I was a sniper. I started shooting again 10 years ago and now do it for competition, with handguns, not sophisticated weapons, I don’t have the eyes for it. But I have an interest in the army.”
Mr Varady praises King – “a world leader in military studies” – and the British education system in general, revealing that his son will follow in his footsteps and start a master’s degree in London this autumn after graduating in the US. .
“It is outstanding, the best in the world, and I can make several comparisons. Your leading schools are truly top notch. The European academic attitude is very restrictive. In Great Britain they say, here is the problem, study the options for solving it.
It’s an approach the government and the City of London could consider as the LSE struggles to retain its biggest companies, and with them its global standing.
Mr Varady said: “The conditions for receiving the money must be worked out properly. The pendulum has swung too far, and now it has to swing back to restore balance.’