History: Wizz Air

Wizz Air is a Hungarian low-cost carrier. The company is officially called Wizz Air Hungary Airlines Ltd. (In Hungarian: Wizz Air Hungary Légiközlekedési Kft.) and its headquarters are located on the grounds of Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport BUD LHBP, Hungary. Since the demise of flag carrier Malev it is the largest hungarian airline. The airline operates primarily in Europe but it also has flights to the Middle East with a total number of 35 countries served from its bases in Central and Eastern Europe

History

Wizz Air was founded in September 2003 with capital from lead investor Indigo Partners (an american private equity firm). The airline had its first revenue flight on the 19th of May 2004, from Katowice. This was possible due to the fact that Poland and Hungary entered the European Union just 19 days before and joined the single European aviation market. Wizz Air carried more then 250 000 passengers in less then four months of operation and almost 1.4 million in its first year.

The passenger numbers went up and in 2011 Wizz Air carried more then 11 million passengers on the whole route network, 15% more then the year before.

József Váradi the former CEO of Malév Hungarian Airlines is the CEO of Wizz Air since its funding.

Corporate affairs and identity

Head office

The headquarters of Wizz Air are located in Building 221, on the grounds of Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport BUD LHBP. The company moved into this office in June 2011 and occupies over 2.000 square meters of space.
The company previously had its headquarters in Vecsés, in the close proximity of the airport.

Destinations

Timeline of Wizz Air route announcements

• 13 June 2013 - Wizz Air announced that it will open routes from Moldova starting from September 2013.

• 26 June 2013 - Wizz Air announced that they will enter the Slovakian market by adding one new route from Košice International Airport starting from September 2013.

• 18 June 2014 - Wizz Air announced that they will start operating flights to Nuremberg from Cluj and Bucharest and to Basel Mulhouse from Bucharest

• 02 July 2014 - Wizz Air announced that starting with 01 November 2014 they will base a second Airbus A320 aircraft at their existing romanian base in Timisoara. The new aircraft will be used to increase frequencies to Milan Bergamo, Rome Ciampino, London Luton, Dortmund and also to add new services to : Memmingen, Turin, Bruxelles Charleroi, Frankfurt Hahn.

• 03 July 2014 - Wizz Air announced that starting from 20 December 2014 they will base a fourth Airbus A320 aircraft at their existing romanian base in Cluj Airport. The new aircraft will be used to open new routes to Cologne, Geneva and Malmo and also to increase frequencies to existing popular routes.

Fleet

As of the June 2014 the Wizz Air fleet consisted in 52 Airbus A320 aircraft with an average age of 3.9 years.

Aircraft	In fleet	Orders
Airbus A320	52	37
Airbus A321	0	26
Total	52	63

Services

Competitors

easyJet RyanAir BlueAir

Accidents and incidents

• 8 June 2013 - Wizz Air Flight 3141, an Airbus A320-232 registered HA-LWM performing a flight from Bucharest Henri Coanda Airport, Romania to Rome Ciampino, Italy, made an emergency landing on Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino Airport when the aircraft was unable to lower the landing gear. While the aircraft should have landed at Rome Ciampino the crew diverted to Fiumicino because of the longer runway. The landing was performed with one of the main undercarriage on a foam bed laid down by the firefighters. The landing was successful with no injuries although initially there were reports of injuries which were denied by Wizz Air and the airport. The aircraft was evacuated using slides. The aircraft returned to service on 28 August 2013.

None

Further reading

• Airlines in Hungary
• Wizz Air plane photos at Airliners.net
• List of Airbus A320 operators