Wizz Air

Wizz Air

IATA W6[1] ICAO WZZ Callsign WIZZ AIR
Founded	September 2003
Commenced operations	19 May 2004
Operating bases	Belgrade Bucharest Budapest (HQ) Cluj-Napoca Craiova Gdańsk Katowice Košice Kyiv-Zhuliany Lublin (begins 14 September 2015)[2] Poznań Prague Riga Skopje Sofia Târgu Mureș Timişoara Tuzla Vilnius Warsaw-Chopin Wrocław
Alliance	ELFAA
Subsidiaries	Wizz Air Ukraine
Fleet size	55
Destinations	97
Company slogan	Now we can all fly.
Parent company	Indigo Partners[3]
Headquarters	Budapest, Hungary
Key people	József Váradi, CEO Diederik Pen, COO
Website	wizzair.com

Wizz Air Hungary Airlines Limited (Hungarian: Wizz Air Hungary Légiközlekedési Kft.) is a Hungarian^[4] 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, and Egypt, Israel, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.^[5] It has the largest fleet of any Hungarian airline, although it is not a flag carrier, and currently serves 35 countries.^[5][6]

History

The airline was established in September 2003. The lead investor is Indigo Partners, an American private equity firm^[7] specialising in transportation investments. The first flight was made from Katowice on 19 May 2004, 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, and almost 1.4 million passengers in the first year of operations. 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)^[8] with operating subsidiaries in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. Wizz Air Bulgaria was established in September 2005.^[9] Váradi won the Ernst & Young award of the 'Brave Innovator' in 2007.

In 2011, Wizz Air carried 11 million passengers (15% more than in 2010), including 4.2 million passengers on Polish routes (only 2% more than in 2010). Recently Wizz opened new bases in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. However, Poland is still the largest market for Wizz Air.^[10]

On 4 October 2012, Wizz Air launched a new cabin bag policy to encourage customers to bring smaller baggage on-board following a successful month-long trial on the London Luton and Katowice route. This means that a smaller (42x32x25cm) cabin bag can be taken on board for free; larger cabin bags (56x45x25cm) would incur a fee varying between €10 or €30.^[11]

In 2014, Wizz Air carried 15,8 million passengers (17% more than in 2013).^[12]

Corporate affairs

Operations

Wizz Air prefers to land at smaller or secondary airports to reduce costs and fees. The airline also has a buy on board service called Wizz Café and a shopping service called Wizz Boutique.^[13]

Head office

Wizz Air has its Headquarters in Building 221 of Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport in Budapest.^[14] Wizz Air signed the lease agreement in October 2010 and moved there 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.^[15] Previously, its head office was in the Airport Business Park C2 in Vecsés, close to the airport.^[16]

Financial performance

While attempting to hasten SkyEurope's demise in June 2009, Wizz Air claimed it had been "profitable for several years".^[17] However, as a private company it is not required to publish its financial accounts - annual reports are still available.^[18] In November 2009, it emerged that Wizz Air was significantly loss-making and had never made a profit while delaying the pay-back of €32 million of debt by five years.^[19] Losses since commencing operations total €78 million, which, in 2009, fueled suggestions that the airline would file for bankruptcy.^[20] Since then Wizz Air reported record profits in 2012,^[21] profits in 2013 and record profits in 2014.^[22] Wizz Air has the second lowest CASK (cost per available seat km) among European airlines.^[22]

According to the Hungarian weekly magazine Figyelő, Wizz Air ranks as the 42nd company in Hungary in revenues in 2010. Wizz Air posted sales of HUF165 billion in 2010, which was an increase of 22% compared to the previous year.^[23]

On 25 February 2015 Wizz Air started trading on London Stock Exchange.^[24]

Criticism

• Calls to the customer service department cost 0.95 EUR per minute, according to Wizz Air's homepage.^[25] Controversially, Wizz Air maintains that it takes up to 30 days to process customer complaint emails.^[25]

• In 2009, the company initiated an official complaint to the World Intellectual Property Organization against a registered domain name on the grounds, among others, that the addition of the suffix "sucks" to the respondent's domain name was a negative term used to indicate criticism.^[26] It was the opinion of the panel that "...in respect of genuine and non-commercial criticism of the complainant does not amount to bad faith registration and use." The final judgment resulted in the complaint being denied and the panel declined to order the transfer of the disputed domain name.

Destinations

Wizz Air operates from 20 bases as of March 2015, the latest addition to them being Tuzla Airport.

Wizz Air started new services between Katowice and London Gatwick in 2008.^[27] In January 2008, flights started from Gdansk to Gothenburg, 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 its Romania services would have increased frequency following an order for three Airbus A320 aircraft.^[28] Services began 15 February 2009 from Timișoara, on 1 March 2009 from Bucharest, and 1 May 2009 from Cluj-Napoca.

In February 2012, Wizz Air announced that it would start flights from Debrecen International Airport to London, beginning 18 June 2012.^[29] On 11 September 2012, Wizz Air announced new routes to and from Tel Aviv, Israel.^[30]

On 11 April 2013 Wizz air announced that it would start flights from Budapest Airport to Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport starting from 17 June 2013.^[31] It will become the furthest of Wizz Air's destinations. The airline will push further again from late October 2013 when it is set to become one of the first airlines to operate from Dubai World Central Airport. On 13 June 2013, Wizz Air announced entry on the Moldovan market adding two new routes from Chişinău International Airport starting from September 2013. On 26 June 2013, Wizz Air announced entry on the Slovakian market adding one new route from Košice International Airport starting from September 2013.^[32]

Fleet

As of April 2015, the Wizz Air fleet consists of the following aircraft with an average fleet age of 3.1 years:^[33]

Wizz Air Fleet

Aircraft	In fleet	Orders	Passengers	Notes
Airbus A320-200	57	9	180
Airbus A321-200	—	26	220	Deliveries from 2015
Total	57	35

Subsidiaries

As of April 2015, Wizz Air had created sub-divisions in three countries in the past, of which none still exist:

• Wizz Air Ukraine was the Ukrainian division of Wizz Air, which had its own air operator's certificate and operated from Kyiv Zhuliany International Airport and Lviv International Airport.^[34] As result of the 2014 situation in Ukraine, Wizz Air Ukraine was shut down on 20 April 2015. Some routes to and from Kyiv were taken over by Wizz Air itself while all others ceased.^[35]

• Wizz Air Bulgaria^[36] was Wizz Air's Bulgarian subsidiary based at Sofia Airport. It since ceased operations.^[36] However, Wizz Air itself still maintains base operations there.

• Wizz Air Romania^[37] was a planned subsidiary to be based at Timișoara Traian Vuia International Airport. However, this sub-company never started operations^[37] and Wizz Air itself inaugurated a base there instead.

Incidents

• On 8 June 2013, Wizz Air Flight 3141, an Airbus A320-232 (registration HA-LWM) from Bucharest - Henri Coandă Airport, Romania to Rome-Ciampino, Italy, made an emergency landing^[38] at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport when the crew encountered problems getting the one of the main undercarriage down and locked. The aircraft diverted to Fiumicino because of the longer runway, and firefighters applied foam to aircraft and runway after landing as a precautionary measure. The aircraft was evacuated using slides.^[39] Initial reports of injured passengers were denied by both Wizz Air and Rome Fiumicino Airport, who said some passengers requested medical checkups but reported no injuries.^[40] The aircraft returned to service on 28 August 2013.

• On 9 September 2014, Wizz Air Flight 3417, an Airbus A320-232 (registration HA-LWN) performing flight from Cluj Napoca Airport, Romania to Zaragoza Airport, Spain, with 171 passengers on board, made an emergency landing on Ferihegy Airport after one of the engines ingested a bird. The plane landed safely about one hour after departure and the passengers continued their flight with another plane from Ferihegy Airport with delay of 2 hours.

See also

• Transport in Hungary

References

External links

Media related to Wizz Air at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website (English)

Airlines of Hungary Current Budapest Aircraft Service CityLine Hungary Farnair Hungary Sólyom Hungarian Airways Travel Service Hungary Wizz Air Defunct ABC Air Hungary Aviaexpress Malert Malév Hungarian Airlines

Members of the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) Current Air Berlin British Airways EasyJet Flybe Jet2 Iberia Norwegian Air Shuttle Ryanair Sverigeflyg Transavia Volotea Vueling Wizz Air Former Air Polonia Basiqair Blue Air Bmibaby Clickair Flying Finn Hapag-Lloyd Express (later TUIfly) My Way Airlines (later MyAir.com) SkyEurope Sterling Volareweb.com

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