Wizz Air

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Wizz Air Hungary Ltd
Wizz Air logo since 2015
Wizz Air Airbus A320
IATA code : W6
ICAO code : WZZ
Call sign : WIZZAIR
Founding: 2003
Seat: Budapest , Hungary
HungaryHungary 
Home airport : Budapest Liszt Ferenc Airport
ISIN : JE00BN574F90
Management:
  • József Váradi ( CEO )
  • Diederik Pen ( COO )
Number of employees: 2,040 (2015)
Passenger volume: 16.5 million (2015)
Fleet size: 112 (+ 267 orders)
Aims: National and international
Website: www.wizzair.com

Wizz Air , actually Wizz Air Hungary Ltd. , is a Hungarian low-cost airline based in Budapest . With currently 28 bases, it is the most important low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe . Since the airline Malév ceased operations , it has also been the largest airline in Hungary.

history

founding

Logo of the airline Wizz Air used until 2015
Wizz-Air-Airbus-A320 in the old design (2009)
Laurus Offices Building B, Wizz Air headquarters (2018)

Wizz Air was founded in July 2003 by József Váradi, previously CEO of the Hungarian Malév , based in London . On September 4, 2003, the company was registered as a Limited in London, and subsidiaries in Poland , Serbia , Bulgaria and the Ukraine were also registered. Wizz Air's main airline is still Wizz Air Hungary. The aim was to offer low-cost services in Central and Eastern Europe and, like the low-cost airline Ryanair , to fly to airports close to major cities.

Exploratory talks were held with Air Polonia , a parcel airline at the time that also wanted to be a low-cost airline. The start was financed with 30 to 50 million euros from venture capital funds. The Airbus A320-200 was selected as the aircraft , of which they wanted five by the time they made their first flight. Aircraft from the Colombian airline ACES Colombia were taken over . Soon after, a maintenance contract was signed with Lufthansa .

Flight operations

On May 13th and 14th, 2004 the first two Airbus A320-200s were handed over at the International Aerospace Exhibition in Berlin-Schönefeld , since the first Wizz Air flight was to go from Katowice to London on May 19th, 2004 . After that, Wizz Air opened scheduled operations on June 23, 2004 with the first commercial flight from Budapest . In the first three and a half months, Wizz Air flew 250,000 passengers, after one year 1.4 million.

In 2007, József Váradi, Managing Director of Wizz Air, won the Ernst & Young Brave Innovator award . The award recognized the breakthrough in the airline business in Hungary , the region and the business model of Wizz Air.

In the summer of 2008, Wizz Air became the first low-cost airline in Ukraine.

In the 2008 financial year, Wizz Air suffered a loss of 9.5 million euros. At the same time it was reported that the company had been in deficit since the start of flight operations and had accumulated a loss of 78 million euros.

In 2010, Wizz Air was one of the 50 largest companies in Hungary in terms of turnover. This year 9.6 million passengers were carried with an occupancy rate of 84%, which corresponds to a passenger increase of 23%.

In 2011, 11 million passengers flew with Wizz Air, an increase of 15% compared to 2010. However, only 2% more passengers flew on Polish routes than in 2010. This shows that Wizz Air has stopped expanding Polish routes in recent years and is increasingly expanding Romania , Lithuania and Serbia had concentrated. Poland is still the airline's largest capital market. In the same year, Wizz Air overtook TAROM in Romania in terms of passenger numbers and has been the market leader there ever since.

In July 2012 the airline was excluded from ticket safe travel insurance. Ticketsafe travel insurance was discontinued shortly afterwards for all airlines. In the same month, Wizz Air announced that it would try out a charge for large hand luggage on the route from London-Luton to Katowice from August 1, 2012 . This regulation was extended to the entire route network, but has since been dropped again.

Since October 2013, Wizz Air has been the first low-cost airline from Europe to fly to Dubai and wants to establish a base for international flights there.

The shares of the parent company Wizz Air Holdings Plc have been listed on the London Stock Exchange since February 25, 2015 .

On March 20, 2015, as a result of the ongoing Ukraine crisis, Wizz Air announced the closure of its Ukrainian subsidiary Wizz Air Ukraine on April 20. The parent company took over eight routes, while ten were canceled without replacement. In May 2015, the HA-LYQ was the first aircraft to be built by Airbus in the new livery, an Airbus A320-200 with Sharklets .

At the beginning of 2018, Wizz Air announced that it would have its own base at Vienna-Schwechat Airport from mid-2018 . An Airbus A320 is to be stationed in Schwechat from June, and two more A321s are to follow from November. With this market entry, 69 weekly flights from Vienna are to be handled by the end of the year.

In 2018 Wizz Air founded the subsidiary Wizz Air UK . The first flight took place on May 3, 2018 from London to Bucharest.

At the end of 2019, Wizz Air founded a subsidiary called "Wizz Air Abu Dhabi". The company will operate flights from Abu Dhabi from the second half of 2020. It was founded to get the AOC of the United Arab Emirates. Since the United Arab Emirates does not have a full OpenSkies agreement with the EU, you would otherwise have to obtain a complicated permit from the Hungarian AOC for each airport outside Hungary. This is circumvented by the Arab company with the appropriate AOC. However, within Germany you should only land and take off with the AOC of the UAE in Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Berlin. Only Hamburg is served from these locations.

From August 2020, Wizz will operate its first German base in Dortmund and thus the fourth (after London-Luton, Vienna and Milan) in Western Europe. Three A320s will be stationed. To this end, all A320s in Vienna were replaced by A321s.

In 2020, the reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic was very different from that of the other airlines . While most airlines were shrinking their capacities, Wizz saw itself as the winner of the crisis and expanded its offering. At the same time, however, it was also announced that 32 of its older A320s would be fleeted out after the end of the leasing contracts and that 1,000 employees would be laid off by March 31, 2021. This will reduce the fleet by eight A320s by mid-2021, while it is expected to grow by 22 A321neo. There was also an offensive interest in the slots that Lufthansa would have to give up if the federal government were to participate in Frankfurt am Main. However, the airport in Frankfurt am Main was only left in April 2020 after the end of the subsidies. This was justified, however, with the redesign of the flight plan.

Destinations

Wizz Air's route network extends from 28 European bases across Europe as well as individual destinations in the Near East.

In the German-speaking region , Wizz Air is in Basel , Berlin , Bremen , Dortmund , Frankfurt-Hahn , Friedrichshafen , Geneva , Hamburg , Hanover , Karlsruhe / Baden-Baden , Cologne / Bonn , Leipzig / Halle , Memmingen , Nuremberg and Vienna , as well as Salzburg .

Bases

As of June 2020, Wizz Air operates a total of 32 bases in 19 European and Asian countries:

fleet

Overview

Wizz Air Airbus A321neo on approach for landing at Frankfurt Airport (2019)
An Airbus from Wizzair in the old design (2014)

As of June 2020, the Wizz Air fleet consists of 112 aircraft with an average age of 6.0 years:

Aircraft type number ordered Remarks Seats Average age

(June 2020)

Airbus A320-200 69 - 33 Sharklets equipped 180/186 8.1 years
Airbus A320neo 01 64 186 0.1 years
Airbus A321-200 34 - All with Sharklets equipped 230 3.0 years
Airbus A321neo 08th 183 239 0.9 years
Airbus A321XLR - 20th Delivery from 2023 239
total 112 267 6.0 years

Orders

On June 18, 2015, Wizz Air signed a preliminary contract with Airbus for the order of 110 Airbus A321neo. These are delivered with 239 seats each.

An A321 with the aircraft registration HA-LXJ and an A320 with the aircraft registration HA-LYG received special paintwork to promote Budapest's participation in the choice of the venue for the 2024 Olympic Games ; they were retained until August 31, 2017.

service

Wizz Air offers a chargeable drinks and food service ("Wizz Café"). A shopping service (“Wizz Boutique”) is also offered.

Incidents

Wizz Air has no fatal accidents.

criticism

Help ( Ö1 -Konsumentenredaktion) and European Consumer Center (EVZ) criticize the fact that online check-ins in October 2018 for postponed flights were not easily possible either on the website or via the app. Consumers had to confirm the postponement of a flight in advance, even if it was often only 5 minutes. For the physical check-in at the airport agent at the airport counter, € 30 per flight and € 5 per processing were charged. Consumer advocates suspect a scam by the company in order to be able to raise additional fees, the Chamber of Labor wants to prepare a model lawsuit. It is recommended to take screenshots of the online ordering process.

See also

Web links

Commons : Wizz Air  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Wizz Air  - Travel Guide

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b corporate.wizzair.com - Annual Report 2015 (English), accessed on April 18, 2017
  2. ↑ berlin-spotter.de - History of the airline Wizz Air , accessed on July 14, 2012.
  3. ↑ - Wizz Air Company History , accessed December 31, 2014.
  4. ↑ bbj.hu - WizzAir suffers € 9.5 million in losses (English) November 27, 2009.
  5. ↑ portfolio.hu - Wizz Air among the 50 larges companies in Hungary (English), accessed on August 28, 2011.
  6. ↑ - Wizz Air conclusion in Poland and also internationally (Polish) , accessed on December 31, 2014
  7. ↑ Şeful Wizz Air: Cu tot respectul, este doar o chestiune de timp până când Tarom va dispărea de pe piaţă , Adevărul January 12, 2018
  8. ↑ Book travel insurance from ERV online - ERV. Accessed March 31, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Book travel insurance from ERV online - ERV. Accessed March 31, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Less stress with hand luggage: Wizz Air is testing a new method. July 9, 2012, accessed March 25, 2018 . Airline website / news
  11. ↑ Wizz Air carries 33,000 since launch in Dubai. In: gulfnews.com. January 17, 2014, accessed December 13, 2019 .
  12. ↑ New base in Dubai; aeronews.ro (Romanian)
  13. ↑ airliners.de: Wizz Air starts successfully on the stock exchange February 25, 2015
  14. ↑ wizzair.com - WIZZ AIR FURTHER RESTRUCTURES UKRAINIAN OPERATIONS. March 26, 2015, accessed March 25, 2018 . (English)
  15. ↑ Wizz Air comes to Vienna. Accessed March 31, 2019 .
  16. ↑ "Wizz Air Abu Dhabi" will be launched in 2020 in the Emirates. Retrieved June 19, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Emirates will initially have four airports in Germany. September 2, 2014, accessed June 19, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Winged Wizz Air ignites another stage in Vienna. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. January 17, 2020, accessed on June 19, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).
  19. ↑ Wizz Air sees itself as a crisis winner. Retrieved June 19, 2020 .
  20. ↑ Low-cost airline leaves Frankfurt Airport - airline customers are annoyed. February 10, 2020, accessed June 19, 2020 .
  21. ↑ Destinations of Wizzair. Retrieved March 25, 2018 .
  22. ^ Company Information. WizzAir.com, accessed July 15, 2017 .
  23. ^ Wizz Air opens its first UK base at London Luton. WizzAir.com, June 21, 2017, accessed July 15, 2017 .
  24. ^ Wizz Air website. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  25. ↑ a b Wizz Air Fleet Details and History. In: planespotters.net. June 19, 2020, accessed June 24, 2020 .
  26. ↑ Airbus - Orders and deliveries. In: airbus.com. May 31, 2020, accessed on June 12, 2020 .
  27. ↑ 211 ordered the A321neo minus 20 XLRs and 8 machines that had already been delivered
  28. ↑ Wizz Air is hoping for a long-haul Airbus A321 XLR. In: www.airliners.de. December 10, 2019, accessed December 13, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Dariusz Tłoczyński: Konkurencja pomiędzy przewoźnikami Ryanair i Wizz Air jako element rozwoju polskiego rynku usług transportu lotniczego / Competition between Ryanair and Wizz Air as an element of development of Polish air transport market . In: Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wrocławiu . No. 450 , 2016, ISSN  1899-3192 , doi : 10.15611 / pn.2016.450.49 .
  30. ↑ Orders, Deliveries, Operators. (XLS file; 553 kB) (No longer available online.) Airbus, August 31, 2013, archived from the original on September 21, 2013 ; accessed on September 29, 2013 (English).
  31. ↑ Current orders: Orders and Deliveries Commercial Aircraft , accessed on March 25, 2018
  32. ↑ Wizzair signs preliminary contract with Airbus for 110 A321neo. aero.de, June 18, 2015, accessed on June 18, 2015 .
  33. ^ Livery for two aircraft , accessed November 24, 2016
  34. ↑ Trouble about expensive check-in at Wizz Air orf.at, March 28, 2019, accessed March 30, 2019.
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Current

Airmax Cargo Budapest • ASL Airlines Hungary • Budapest Aircraft Service • Fleet Air International • Ronan Air • Smartwings Hungary • Wizz Air

Former

ABC Air Hungary • Aviaexpress • Cityline Hungary • Farnair Hungary • Farner Air Transport Hungary • Malert • Malév • Maszovlet • NAWA Air Transport • Sólyom Hungarian Airways • Travel Service Hungary