Wizz Air to maintain EX-YU growth

Wizz Air plans to further strengthen its presence in the former Yugoslavia in the coming period with additional flights to Skopje and Podgorica, as well potential new services to Mostar. The airline's Chief Commercial Officer, Owain Jones, told EX-YU Aviation News that the former Yugoslavia continues to play an important role in the carrier's network, which, as of this summer, serves every country in the region. However, Mr Jones conceded that the airline's presence in some markets, such as Croatia, remains limited compared to other low cost rivals. He noted that both demand and costs remain an issue in the country, but added that the carrier recently stepped up its presence in Croatia with the introduction of flights to Osijek, which will be served on a year-long basis.

Wizz Air fleet allocation in 2017

Commenting on its future growth plans, Mr Jones said to "Routes Online" recently, "When choosing new routes our network development team consider a lot of factors, but its principally demand. Is there a population there which wants to travel by air? Our home CEE [Central - East Europe] markets are developing rapidly in terms of GDP between 2.5 and 6.5% each year. That obviously translates directly into growing demand for air travel”. He added, "The market gain in CEE is different to Western Europe. Everybody is scrapping it out on the Western routes and they’re trying to steal passengers from other airlines. It’s a very saturated market in terms of capacity and demand. CEE is completely different".

Wizz Air market position compared to other LCCs in key markets

Following its biggest expansion to date within the former Yugoslavia over the summer, Wizz Air plans to increase frequencies on flights from Budapest to Skopje and Podgorica, which were launched just several months ago. Both routes will be served three times per week, instead of the current two, starting October 31. As EX-YU Aviation unofficially learns, the airline will utilise its 230-seat Airbus A321 aircraft on two out of its three weekly flights between the Hungarian and Macedonian capital cities from May 5, 2018, which will represent an almost 20% capacity increase each week. Elsewhere, the airline is said to be in talks with Mostar Airport over the introduction of flights from Sweden, which could potentially launch as early as this winter, however, the airline has made no comment on this matter.