Wizz Air

IATA W6 ICAO WZZ Callsign WIZZ AIR
Founded	2003
Operating bases	Belgrade Bucharest-Otopeni Budapest (HQ) Cluj-Napoca Gdańsk Katowice (Largest base) Kyiv Poznań Prague Skopje [begins 28 October 2012] Sofia Târgu Mureş Timişoara Vilnius Warsaw-Chopin [ends 17 July] Warsaw-Modlin [begins 18 July] Wrocław
Subsidiaries	Wizz Air Serbia Wizz Air Ukraine
Fleet size	36 (+ 121 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 Airlines Ltd. (Hungarian: 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. Of all Hungarian airlines, it has the most aircraft in its fleet.

  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. Since the bankruptcy of Malev Hungarian Airlines on the 3rd of February 2012, Wizz Air can be considered as being the flag carrier of Hungary.

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.^{[citation needed]}

In summer 2008 Wizz Air became the first low cost carrier in Ukraine.^{[citation needed]}

In 2011 Wizz Air carried 11 million passengers (15% more than in 2010), in this 4.2 million passengers on Polish routes (it´s only 2% more than in 2010). In recent years Wizz stopped developing its network of connections from Poland and opened new bases in Romania, Lithuania and Serbia, however Poland is still the largest capital market for Wizz Air.^[6]

  Corporate affairs

  Gate A at Budapest Airport leads to the Wizz Air head office

  Wizz Air Airbus A320-200 in the ramp Katowice International Airport, Poland

  Head office

Wizz Air has its head office in Building 221 of Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport in Budapest.^[7] 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.^[8] Previously its head office was in the Airport Business Park C2 in Vecsés, close to the airport.^[9]

  Financial Performance

While attempting to hasten SkyEurope's demise in June 2009, Wizz Air claimed it had been "profitable for several years".^[10] 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.^[11] Losses since commencing operations total €78 million, which has fueled suggestions that the airline may file for bankruptcy.^[12]

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.^[13]

  Destinations

  Bulgarian-registered Airbus A320-200 takes off from London 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.^[14] 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.^[15] Services began 15 February 2009 from Timisoara, on 1 March 2009 from Bucharest, and 1 May 2009 from Cluj-Napoca.

In February 2012, Wizz Air announced it will start flights from Debrecen to London, beginning June 18, 2012.^[16]

Wizz Air Serbia

• The Serbian division of Wizz Air has 1 international base at Belgrade.

Wizz Air Ukraine

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

  Service

According to customer reviews, Wizz Air is a 2 star airline, making it comparable to airlines like Ryanair and bmibaby.^[17][18] Calls to the customer service department cost 0.75 GBP per minute, according to Wizz Air's own homepage,^[19] and controversially Wizz Air also maintains that it takes up to 30 days to process customer complaint emails.^[19] 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.^[20] 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 judgement resulted in the complaint being denied and the Panel declined to order the transfer of the disputed domain name.

  In-flight services

Wizz Air has a buy on board service called Wizz Café and a shopping service called Wizz Boutique. For both services, the base price is in euros. All flights also accept pound sterling notes as tender, while pound sterling coins are not accepted. Flights with Hungary as the origin or destination also accept forints. Flights with Poland as the origin or destination accept złoty. The prices in pounds, forints, and złoty are conversions of the original euro prices. Wizz Air flights also accept EuroCard, MasterCard and Visa credit cards.^[21]

  Fleet

  Wizz Air - Airbus A320 Cabin

The Wizz Air fleet consists of the following aircraft with an average fleet age of 3.4 years (as of 21 April 2012):^[22]

Notes

• ^1 : 2 Airbus A320 operate for Wizz Air Ukraine, 1 also operates for Wizz Air Serbia.

  See also

• Transport in Hungary

  References

  External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wizz Air

• Official website (English)

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