Base in Gdansk

Press release

Wizz Air, Central and Eastern Europe’s largest low fare - low cost airline announced at a press conference in Gdansk today that in order to provide seamless operation it would establish a new crew base in Gdansk. Gdansk will be the airline’s fourth crew base and the third in Poland.

This development comes just a month after the airline announced the establishment of its second Polish crew base in Warsaw. Wizz Air currently flies to London/Luton and Dortmund and will commence flights to Stockholm/Skavsta and to Liverpool from Gdansk on 1 December 2005 and 2 March 2006 respectively. Shortly another new route from Gdansk will be announced.

In order to be able to increase frequencies on the existing routes and open new destinations Wizz Air will position one aircraft in Lech Walesa airport in Gdansk. The new aeroplane will start operation in March 2006.

By introducing a new crew base, Wizz Air will create over 30 new local jobs and - more significantly - will contribute to an upturn in the economy of Pomerania. Wizz Air has been continuously demonstrating its commitment to the Polish market by offering more new destinations from an increasing number of Polish airports. Recently Wizz Air started operations from Poznan and announced new flights from Wroclaw. First of December will mark new flights from Warsaw to Kaunas, Budapest and Dortmund. According to the Polish Civil Aviation Authority Wizz Air is the second largest airline in Poland after the national carrier and the largest low cost airline in the country accounting for 12% of the market share of all airlines and over 40% of the total low cost traffic*.

Wizz Air currently serves 17 destinations from Poland (on 24 routes) and has 132 flights weekly, which represents a 31% growth in capacity compared to the summer period.
József Váradi, Chief Executive Officer of Wizz Air said: “We are happy to see our business growing so rapidly that just a year after our first flight from Gdansk, we are now opening a crew base and positioning an aircraft in Lech Walesa airport. Our commitment is strengthened by the full support we have met from the authorities of the region of Pomerania and the Tri-Cities. With our new base opening we aim at carrying about 2 million passengers to and from Poland next year."
 

* according to the official statistics of the Polish Civil Aviation Authority.

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Wizz Air is Central & Eastern Europe’s leading low fare - low cost airline. Wizz Air flies a young fleet of 180 seater Airbus A320 aircraft from Katowice, Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan in Poland, from Budapest in Hungary and from Sofia in Bulgaria on 33 European routes to 19 destinations currently. Since its start in May 2004 Wizz Air has carried over 2.2 million passengers.