Wizz Air

{{Infobox Airline |airline = Wizz Air |logo = Wizz Air logo.svg |logo_size = 220 |fleet_size = 35 (+ 97 orders) |destinations = 66 |IATA = W6 |ICAO = WZZ |callsign = WIZZ AIR |parent = |company_slogan = We can all fly now |founded = 2003 |headquarters = Vecsés, Hungary |key_people = |bases = low-cost airline with headquarters in the Airport Business Park C2 in Vecsés, close to Budapest Ferihegy International Airport, Hungary. The airline typically uses secondary airports serving many cities across Europe.

History

The airline was established in September 2003. The lead investor is Indigo Partners, an American private equity firm 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) with operating subsidiaries in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. Wizz Air Bulgaria was established in September 2005.

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.

Financial Performance

While attempting to hasten SkyEurope's demise in June 2009, Wizz Air claimed it had been "profitable for several years". 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. Losses since commencing operations total €78 million, which has fueled suggestions that the airline may file for bankruptcy.

Destinations

Airbus A320-200 departs London Luton Airport, England]] n-registered Airbus A320-200 takes off from Luton Airport]]

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. 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. Services began 15 February 2009 from Timisoara, on 1 March 2009 from Bucharest, and 1 May 2009 from Cluj-Napoca.

Wizz Air Ukraine

The Ukrainian division of Wizz Air has 1 international base at Kiev.

Wizz Air Bulgaria The Bulgarian division of Wizz Air has been awarded licences to begin new services to Greece, Turkey. While London (Luton) daily from Sofia, weekly from Varna and seasonal from Burgas. Wizz Air considers to start flights from Plovdiv shortly. 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. Calls to the customer service department cost 0.75 GBP per minute, according to Wizz Air's own homepage, and controversially Wizz Air also maintains that it takes up to 30 days to process customer complaint emails.

Fleet

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

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

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.

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.

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. Despite the efforts of Wizz Air and their legal team citing trademark infringement over the disputed domain, the case was decided in favour of the respondent(s) and the site remains. 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. 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. 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 (EC) 261/2004.

See also

Transport in Hungary

References

External links

Official website

Category:Airlines of Poland Category:Airlines of Hungary Category:Airlines of Bulgaria Category:Low-cost airlines Category:Airlines established in 2003 Category:European Low Fares Airline Association