Wizz Air

Wizz Air
IATA
W6
ICAO
WZZ
Callsign
WIZZ AIR
Founded 2003
Operating bases
Fleet size 37 (+ 123 orders)
Destinations 66
Company slogan We can all fly now
Headquarters Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport
Budapest, Hungary
Key people
  • József Váradi (CEO)
  • Christopher Collins (COO)
Website www.wizzair.com/

Wizz Air Hungary Légiközlekedési Kft. is a Hungarian[1][2] low-cost airline with its head office on the property of Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport in Budapest. The airline typically uses secondary airports serving many cities across Europe.

Contents

History

The airline was established in September 2003. The lead investor is Indigo Partners, an American private equity firm [3] specialising in transportation investments. The first flight was made on 19 May 2004 from Katowice, 19 days after Poland and Hungary entered the European Union and the single European aviation market. The airline carried 250,000 passengers in its first three and a half months, almost 1.4 million passengers in the first year of operations and to date, 10 million passengers. In 2007 Wizz Air carried 2.9 million passengers on its Polish routes.

The airline's CEO and chairman is József Váradi, former CEO of Malév Hungarian Airlines. The company is registered in Pest County (Hungary)[4] with operating subsidiaries in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. Wizz Air Bulgaria was established in September 2005.[5]

József Váradi, Chief Executive Officer of Wizz Air, won the Ernst & Young award of the 'Brave Innovator' in 2007. The prize recognised the break through in the airline business in Hungary and the region, the business model and the business conduct of Wizz Air.

In summer 2008 Wizz Air became the first low cost carrier in Ukraine.

Corporate affairs

Head office

Wizz Air has its head office in Building 221 of Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport in Budapest.[6] Wizz Air signed the lease agreement in October 2010 and moved there with 150 employees in June 2011. The airline occupies over 2,000 square metres (22,000 sq ft) of space in an office building refurbished after the airline's arrival. The facility, with open plan offices, houses about 150 employees.[7] Previously its head office was in the Airport Business Park C2 in Vecsés, close to the airport.[8]

Financial Performance

While attempting to hasten SkyEurope's demise in June 2009, Wizz Air claimed it had been "profitable for several years".[9] However, as a private company it is not required to publish its financial accounts. In November 2009, it emerged Wizz Air is significantly loss-making and has never made a profit while delaying the pay-back of €32 million of debt by five years.[10] Losses since commencing operations total €78 million, which has fueled suggestions that the airline may file for bankruptcy.[11]

According to Hungarian weekly magazine Figyelő, Wizz Air ranks 42nd company in Hungary in terms of revenues in 2010. Wizz Air posted sales of HUF165 billion in 2010, which is an increase of 22% compared to the previous year.[12]

Destinations

Wizz Air prefers to land at smaller or secondary airports to reduce costs and fees.

Wizz Air started new services between Katowice and London Gatwick in 2008.[13] Winter destinations from Warsaw are Milan Bergamo and Grenoble. In January 2008, flights started from Gdansk to Goteborg, Bournemouth and Coventry.

In summer 2008, Wizz Air restarted the summer only services from Katowice and Budapest to Girona, as well as a new weekly service to Girona from Gdańsk. Other summer services from Budapest are Heraklion, Corfu, Burgas and Varna, from Katowice to Crete-Heraklion and Burgas, Warsaw to Corfu and Burgas. They also restarted the three-times weekly service from London Luton to Burgas.

On 2 October 2008, Wizz Air announced that a number of their Romania services would have increased frequency following an order for three Airbus A320 aircraft.[14] Services began 15 February 2009 from Timisoara, on 1 March 2009 from Bucharest, and 1 May 2009 from Cluj-Napoca.

Wizz Air Ukraine

Wizz Air Bulgaria

Wizz Air has 1 international base at Sofia.

Wizz Air Bulgaria merged with Wizz Air Hungary in 2011. All flights from Bulgaria are now operating under Wizz Air Hungary.

Service quality

According to customer reviews, Wizz Air is a 2 star airline, making it comparable to airlines like Ryanair and bmibaby.[16][17] Calls to the customer service department cost 0.75 GBP per minute, according to Wizz Air's own homepage,[18] and controversially Wizz Air also maintains that it takes up to 30 days to process customer complaint emails.[18] Available statistics show that just 74% flights were on time, with 26% arriving late or being cancelled. Specifically, 8% were classed as being 'late', 3% 'very late', 9% 'excessively late', and 2% cancelled completely.[19]

Fleet

The Wizz Air fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of 21 June 2011)[20]

Wizz Air Fleet
Aircraft Total Orders Passengers
Airbus A320-232 37 123 180

The Average age of the Wizz Air fleet (As of 21 June 2011), is less than 3 years.[20]

30 aircraft operate for Wizz Air Hungary (a further 3 for Wizz Air Bulgaria and 2 for Wizz Air Ukraine). All its A320s are powered by International Aero Engines V2500 engines, including those to be leased from GECAS. The 99.5% technical dispatch reliability is well above the world average. Maintenance is by the Lufthansa Technik maintenance organisation.[21]

On 10 October 2007, Wizz Air confirmed an order for a further 50 Airbus A320 aircraft bringing its total commitments of that type up to 80 and an option for further 25 A320s.[22]

During the 2009 Paris Air Show, Wizz Air signed a letter of intent with Airbus to purchase 50 shorthaul aircraft (possibly the A320) at a price of $3.8 billion.

Criticism

Wizz Air has taken a fair amount of criticism since its inception over its quality of service and allegedly poor customer support. On August 17, 2009 they filed an official complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization over the domain Wizzairsucks.com which surfaced a few months earlier by a group of disgruntled customers.[23] Wizz Air sued the web site owners, claiming the domain name constitutes trademark infringement, but the respondents prevailed and the site remains.[24] On December 22, 2009 they were embroiled in a controversy over a story that circulated from Travel.ru, claiming they used police dogs and tear gas to forcibly remove several passengers from a cancelled flight scheduled from London to Kiev.[25] This was contested by Wizz Air claiming it was a PR attack perpetrated by angry customers of the flight. They released a police report corroborating their version of events which clearly made no mention of either tear gas or dogs being involved in the ordeal.[26] However the story quickly circulated over the internet by disgruntled customers causing a PR problem. According to the website wizzairsucks.com the airline does not respect passengers' rights and often ignores European law, in particular Regulation 261/2004.

See also

Budapest portal
Hungary portal
Aviation portal
Companies portal


References

  1. ^ "Hungarian Wizz Air Opens Fifth Hub in Poland". Business Week. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=9263282. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  2. ^ "Fliers reap benefits in Eastern Europe". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. http://web.archive.org/web/20080801121302/http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/08/23/eeair_ed3_.php. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  3. ^ "Ryanair meets Wizz Air: does a merger make sense?". 2009-07-08. http://www.centreforaviation.com/news/2009/07/08/ryanair-meets-wizz-air-does-a-merger-make-sense/page1. Retrieved 2009-07-28. 
  4. ^ "Company information (official registration number 13-09-096209)". http://wizzair.com/about_us/company_information/. Retrieved 2009-02-16. 
  5. ^ Airliner World, January 2007.
  6. ^ "Company overview." Wizz Air. Retrieved on 11 December 2011. "Wizz Air Hungary Airlines Ltd. BUD International Airport Building 221 H-1185 Budapest"
  7. ^ "Property development." (also see image) Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport. Retrieved on 11 December 2011.
  8. ^ "Company information". http://web.archive.org/web/20090312090822/http://wizzair.com/about_us/company_information/?. Retrieved 2009-10-25.  "Wizz Air Hungary Airlines Ltd. Airport Business Park C2, Lőrinci út 59 2220 Vecsés, Hungary"
  9. ^ "While SkyEurope is sinking, Wizz Air is stretching wings". 2009-06-29. http://www.cbw.cz/en/article/while-skyeurope-is-sinkingwizz-air-is-stretching-wings.aspx. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
  10. ^ "Maďarský Wizz Air skončil v desaťmiliónovej strate". 2009-11-26. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fekonomika.sme.sk%2Fc%2F5126583%2Fmadarsky-wizz-air-skoncil-v-desatmilionovej-strate.html&sl=sk&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8. 
  11. ^ "WizzAir suffers €9.5 million in losses". 2009-11-27. http://bbjonline.hu/?id=50976. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
  12. ^ "Wizz Air among the 50 largest companies in Hungary". 2011-07-22. http://www.portfolio.hu/en/economy/wizz_air_among_the_50_largest_companies_in_hungary.22633.html. Retrieved 2011-07-22. 
  13. ^ "Wizz Air launches London Gatwick – Katowice flight". 2007-08-09. http://wizzair.com/about_us/news/#pgf8573. Retrieved 2008-05-05. 
  14. ^ "Wizz Air adds three new A320 aircraft and doubles capacity in Romania - 15 new routes in the next six months". http://wizzair.com/about_us/news/#jk98judt1/. 
  15. ^ "Wizz Air to Launch Flights from Bulgaria's Plovdiv". 2010-05-25. http://novinite.com/view_news.php?id=116517. Retrieved 2010-09-13. 
  16. ^ "Airlinequality.com about Wizz Air". Skytrack Research. http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/wizz.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-08. 
  17. ^ "Airlinequality.com 2 star list". Skytrack Research. http://www.airlinequality.com/StarRanking/2star.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-08. 
  18. ^ a b "Wizz Air". Wizz Air. http://wizzair.com/about_us/contact_us/. Retrieved 2009-04-08. 
  19. ^ "FlightStats about Wizz Air". FlightStats. http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightRating/flightRatingByCarrier.do?airline=(W6)+Wizzair&x=19&y=7. Retrieved 2009-04-08. 
  20. ^ a b "Wizz Air Fleet". http://wizzair.com/about_us/fleet. Retrieved 2011-06-21. 
  21. ^ "Wizz Air Sale and Lease Back with GECAS". 2007-12-17. http://wizzair.com/about_us/news/?language=EN#de8F6hu6. 
  22. ^ "Wizz Air orders 50 more Airbus A320s". Flightglobal. 2007-10-10. http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/10/10/218146/wizz-air-orders-50-more-airbus-a320s.html. 
  23. ^ "WIZZ Air Hungary Airlines Limited Liability Company v. Holden Thomas". WIPO Case No. D2009-1105. 2009-09-22. http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2009/d2009-1105.html. 
  24. ^ "Wizzair loses! Score one for Wizzairsucks!". 2009-10-01. http://www.wizzairsucks.com/2009/10/wizzair-loses-score-one-for-wizzairsucks/. 
  25. ^ "Пассажиров отмененного рейса Wizzair Лондон - Киев выгоняли из самолета собаками и газом". 2009-12-22. http://www.travel.ru/news/2009/12/22/176206.html. 
  26. ^ "Gee Wizz: Low-cost airline falls victim to orchestrated PR attack". Kyiv Post. 2010-01-14. http://www.kyivpost.com/news/business/bus_general/detail/57056. 

External links