Images courtesy of Wizz Air.
Wizz Air Its Ukrainian network remains small,
with fl ights from Kiev to Poland, Western Europe and Turkey, and to Dortmund and Venice from Lviv, plus an internal fl ight from Kiev to Simferopol.
Growing existing routes Apart from its Baltic and Balkan forays, Wizz Air is looking to grow by increasing capacity on existing routes as demand grows. Its fl eet of 34 aircraft forms part of an order for 132 Airbus 320s to be delivered by 2017, some to replace older aircraft but most of which are intended for expansion. “We have one of the youngest fl eets, which is good because maintenance costs are lower on newer aircraft,” Dankovics says. He says fl ights from Budapest and Polish airports to London Luton, Charleroi and Dortmund are now ‘mature’ services with two or three fl ights a day, and this is the model Wizz Air will try to follow elsewhere.
These began as what he terms ‘ethnic’ routes for migrant workers, which saw few other travellers, “but they now have city break traffi c and other tourists on them and people seeing friends and family”. He says Wizz Air plans to add frequency where it sees more routes coming to maturity.
One example came in December, when it based a fi fth aircraft in Bucharest to increase frequencies to 10 mainly tourist destinations in France, Italy, Spain and the UK, and announced new routes to Larnaca and Malaga.
Wizz Air is also developing
non-leisure routes, some of which might at fi rst appear curious.
The airline has launched routes from Gdansk to Aarhus and Stavanger. “Those might not sound very obvious, but Aarhus is a big university city and we
48
saw there were many students who were going there by ferry, when we could be cheaper, and Stavanger is Norway’s third city and major centre for the oil industry,” Dankovics says.
Growing Polish market Longer-term growth is expected to develop as Eastern Europeans’ travel habits become more like those of the continent’s west. “More Polish people are travelling abroad, such as on the Poznan to Barcelona route, and that trend will grow and open up more destinations,” Dankovics says.
“Our new routes have seen Poles travelling more, up by 23% last year.
‘Ethnic’ traveller numbers may be falling but we are seeing city breaks and tourism travel increasing.”
Wizz Air also hopes to attract more business travellers in the future. “Many of our existing routes are very attractive to business travellers who are wondering why they should spend three times more on a traditional carrier and get the same service,” Dankovics says. Eastern Europe’s leading LCC will indeed be looking to tap into more business traffi c in the future, as well as fi nding plenty of places to land those 132 Airbuses – and if it could gain access to Russia it seems likely that many would head there.
RN
www.routes-news.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100