Wizz Air is today reintroducing operations from its bases in Belgrade and Tuzla with its two aircraft stationed in both cities. Although Wizz resumed flights from London to Belgrade on May 18, the service is operated by its British registered aircraft and crew. The budget airline will this week commence services from Belgrade to Basel, Dortmund, Hanover, Baden Baden, Memmingen, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, Malmo and Skavsta, while flights to Larnaca, Malta and Beauvais are to launch in mid-June. From Tuzla, the airline will reinstate operations to its entire network this week, including Vienna, Billund, Basel, Berlin, Cologne, Dortmund, Hahn, Friedrichshafen, Baden Baden, Memingen, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, Malmo, Skavsta and Vaxjo. Last week, the carrier announced it would commence a new two weekly service from both Belgrade and Tuzla to Salzburg starting July 2.
As EX-YU Aviation News learns, Wizz Air will not be removing either of its two aircraft based in both Belgrade and Tuzla. Despite the ongoing pandemic, the low cost airline is set for a busy first week back at the two airports, with inbound flights seeing high load factors, some even being overbooked. This week, Wizz will also resume flights between Budapest and Sarajevo. Furthermore, it will reintroduce all of its services from Niš, after restarting flights from the city with a single route two weeks ago.
Wizz Air’s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, said last week, “We are one of the very few airlines in Europe which can deliver growth capacity when everyone else is cutting and contracting capacity”. Mr Varadi noted the airline would retain its primarily eastern and central European focus but would be more opportunistic in western Europe. Wizz, whose Abu Dhabi-based joint venture is due to start flying later this year, is also opening new bases at Milan, Larnaca, Lviv and Tirana. “Many airports are approaching us”, Mr Varadi said. Wizz has a strong balance sheet and while it has cut 19% of its workforce, it is sticking with plans to grow its fleet and was one of the first airlines to restart flights.
Nice news!
ReplyDeleteMr Varadi, what growth if you are reducing your BUD and CLJ bases by two aircraft and WAW, SKP, WRO, TSR, CRA...by one?
ReplyDeleteThat man is such a spin doctor.
That spin doctor said goodbye to Laudas base in VIE.
DeleteBut not to FR babe ;)
DeleteIf Ryanair does replace Lauda in Vienna then it's going to make things much worse for both Wizz Air and Austrian Airlines. Ryanair plans on using their Maltese and Polish crew who are working under borderline illegal contracts and extremely low salaries. In other words, they will enter a market with relatively high expenses with much lower costs.
Deletenot really. the image of Ryanair and Lauda in Austria is a the lowest level ...
DeleteTo be honest I don't think people care that much as long as their fares are low.
DeleteNote that Wizz's image is better in Austria than Lauda/Ryanair.
Deleteand the Maltese crew were sacked by a third
Deletehttps://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/malta-air-makes-pilots-cabin-crew-redundant.795406
Austria is not that price sensitive, since people have more money, so indeed most people dislike Ryanair + there's Level in Vienna.
DeleteIf people were not price sensitive then how come W6 and FR do so well there?
DeleteIt helps when one can read: I wrote most, not all people.
DeleteSo what you are saying is that only poor people love FR? Ok.
DeleteI did not write that - it is something that you somehow decided to understand.
DeleteStrange theory man, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
DeleteGood news that they won’t be taking away aircraft from BEG and TZL.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThat is bad news fore JU.
DeleteJU lived so many years (and kept expanding!) with W6 in BEG so I do not see any reason why it should be any bad news for JU.
DeleteAnd also there were Norwegian, flyDubai, Pegasus, Transavia Volotea, Redwings, easyJet etc.
It seems to be bad news for you.
When did Volotea fly to BEG?
DeleteIt is only bad news for Serbian tax payers.
DeleteCorrection:
DeleteVueling
Interesting that they are seeing great loads just like JU is. Seems like Serbian market is recovering fast!
ReplyDeleteAny other potential new destination from these two airports other than Salzburg?
ReplyDeleteI think AUH could work from both cities.
DeleteLIS from BEG
DeleteMXP-BEG?
DeleteTAP tried LIS-BEG and failed.
DeleteAlso Italy doesn't seem to have worked out well for LCCs from BEG.
DeleteTAP never failed in Belgrade. They went into overall restructuring, scrapping many routes in order to consolidate themselves. The demand is there. It's just a question now if TP or JU will seize the opportunity first.
DeleteWiZz failed in Brussels then how come JU does fine? Same about DY and W6 in Oslo?
Delete^ Because their cost structures are different. An indication that JU is not making money in Brussels is that they have decreased frequencies several times on the route for the past few years. In winter 2017/18 and 2018/19 when they were implementing huge network cuts, Brussels saw the biggest number of pre cancellations. It was barely operated in February.
Delete* barely operated in February in those years.
DeleteWell, he was speaking about terminated routes, not downgraded ones. Air Serbia still flies to Brussels unlike Wizz Air.
DeleteYes and it looses a bucket load of money by flying there. But of course they won't suspend it - to Brussels of all places.
DeleteI think Paris Beauvais could work for them from Tuzla, especially since there are no nonstop flights from Bosnia to France.
Delete@9.19 Italy seems a no go zone for LCCs from Serbia. Easyjet and Air One also failed on Belgrade-Milan route.
DeleteAnon 10.39 and what are you basing your argument on that JU is losing money in Brussels? I am really curious.
DeleteOn the fact that frequencies have been decreasing year after year in summer and winter and one year the route didn't even operate in February for the whole month.
DeleteThat still doesn't mean it's losing money, actually the cuts could have stabilized the route's finances.
DeleteIronic really how there are constantly some Wizz haters here yet they were the first airline to resume flights to SRB and BiH and are resuming the most flights at the moment.
ReplyDeleteTechnically JU never ceased flights as they operated countless repatriation flights free of charge.
DeleteWe are talking about commercial flights, as you already know.
Deletewell, I'm a hater because of their passivity in BEG. sure, they announced SZG, but they're starting TIA with 15 routes and 3 planes. BEG has far more potential then the current network
Delete^ Well you don't know the economics behind it. Unlike some airlines they make their decisions based on costs and profit. Some routes may have potential but you have to factor in airport costs and competition.
DeleteTIA is throwing cash at them, that's why they are expanding like that there. In Belgrade they have to compete fairly with others
DeleteThey compete fairly with everyone other than Air Serbia, which doesn't compete fairly against anyone considering the subsidies, incentives and aid they get. Plus the regulatory assistance in blocking airlines or routes they also get from time to time.
DeleteTIA "isnt throwing cash" at them. Those incentives are available to be used by every airline unlike SKP s tenders
DeleteThen how come foreign airlines thrive on Belgrade despite this supposed unfair competition from JU? Hmm
DeleteImagine how many airlines there would be if the competition was fair.
DeleteBecause there is a market. There is demand.
DeleteW6 knows it although they tried to blackmail BEG few years ago. It was epic fail.
Anon 10.01
DeleteHow many would there be? Can you please explain to all of us here how come JU terminated Malta where they were defeated by Wizz Air?
TIA is offering subsidies to all airlines, not just W6. JU would most likely have benefited from some subsidies had the increase in frequencies went ahead.
DeleteAirlines in TIA are also getting subsidies when scheduling larger aircraft on existing routes.
@ anon 10,01
This has been commented soo many times. You obviously have no knowledge of what has been happening the past 15 years in Serbian aviation. You can go back to tens of articles where this was debated from all aspects.
Is there any indication when the Skopje base will reopen?
ReplyDeleteWhen Skopje Airport reopens. 15th of June most probably but could be later.
DeleteWhy is NMKD so strict with their border?
DeleteBecause the epidemiological situation is still not good.
Deleterubbish. MK has a low number of active cases. its because of elections that must be held in 22 days if they reopen the borders aka end of the emergency state (initial date was beginniing of April). the rightwingers are afraid now to take part so they threat to boycot them.
Deletethe borders stil closed is because of a deep political crisis
I don't know about politics but there were 7 deaths today and 89 new cases despite Macedonia not having the biggest population in the region and doing the least testing per capita.
DeleteWow that's bad, I'm happy Serbia is done with those scenarios, we had one death and 18 new cases, down from 31 yesterday.
DeleteThese are clusters in the parts of the country where Albanians were celebrating Ramadan.
DeleteSame pattern as in all countries post-Ramadan, even Iran which managed to reduce the infections is back to the peak levels.
Luton-Belgrade is full to the last seat today.
ReplyDeleteFantastic news. Great to see Tuzla back in action.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion this is a sad day for our airport in Sarajevo. Even though airport has reopened there are no flights whatsoever whereas Tuzla has 3 flights today. Shows how bad the strategy has been at SJJ for not attracting any airline to open a base here.
ReplyDeleteAs I can see all flights scheduled for today are being canceled
ReplyDeleteYou are seeing wrong
DeleteBelgrade - Memmingen departed
Belgrade - Stockholm Skavsta departed
London Luton - Belgrade departed
The rest are scheduled for later today.
Yes I don't know which cancellations you talk about. All BEG flights are operating normally and Tuzla flights begin tomorrow.
DeleteNew glasses maybe?
DeleteI hope they will start Abu Dhabi from at least on ex-Yu airport. Would give Flydubai a run for their money.
ReplyDeleteGood to see Wizz Air isn't in any major problem.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised how many flights they are operating all things considered.
ReplyDeleteLooks like W6 will be winners after the crisis.
ReplyDeleteJust checked on their website that they have a 20% promo from and to Bulgaria because of the opened borders. There are prices as little as 13€! e.g. SOF-BCN
ReplyDeleteVIE-BOJ 17€ another nail in the coffin for Lauda...
I wonder if they will do the same with BEG especially to Switzerland and Germany.
We might expect a revolution in VIE following the Lauda goodbye in January 2021.
Lauda is being replaced with Ryanair, they are not going anywhere. Also don't forget that Wizz reduced many bases in the region so they are not doing all that well. Sofia also saw some reductions the past few years.
DeleteYeah, similar to their other bases they reduced some destinations replacing them with newer ones. Tbh, LGW was the biggest surprise. This route is strongly dominated by U2 for almost a decade and will be interesting to see how they perform.
DeleteFR is cutting MAD OTP and 0B is terminating OTP BCN, both great news for JU.
DeleteAt least things are moving again.
ReplyDeleteNot a good start, both flights are terribly delayed.
ReplyDeleteFMM 06.10/ 09.39
NYO 06.15/ 09.13
Hope passengers got the compensation.
Sure they will. Sometime next year after the ones waiting for 2 months already will be paid.
DeleteDoubt it, what W6 does is that they board the plane 15 minutes before the time expires and like that they can get out of paying.
DeleteInterestingly, FR is cutting AMM, TLV, SEN and MAD (!) from OTP. I wonder if W6 will react to this.
ReplyDeleteFR have failed quite a lot in Romania sadly after the closure of TSR and completely pulling out of OMR and CRA.
Okay. Cutting Madrid is an utter surprise. The market is endless?!?!!?
DeleteSurprisingly, FR is winning in SOF (kicked asses in UK, DE and IT) and losing in OTP.
Don't forget that Wizz is also reducing flights and bases in Romania.
DeleteHere are some fresh photos from the Aerodrom Niš Konstantin Veliki FB page from today (INI-DTM)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1674736565998569&set=pcb.1674737005998525
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1674736619331897&set=pcb.1674737005998525
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1674736602665232&set=pcb.1674737005998525
Doesn't seem to be quite a busy flight...
It's busy on the way in. Not so much on the way out where there is a ban on entry.
DeleteGreatto have them back.
ReplyDeleteThat was supposed to be *great to
DeleteGreat news!
ReplyDeleteIm sad bkoz no more lyon from beg. Also wizz could open summer flights to armenia and georgia.
ReplyDeleteThis is confusing. How come they are selling tickets for this week, when all these countries have not even opened up to their neighbouring countries within the EU?
ReplyDeleteOr are they simply selling tickets to stay afloat?
Because most people flying with Wizz Air are gastos who are citizens of the European country they fly from. Also many of these countries have many exceptions like allowing your immediate family entry (if you are a citizen) despite them not having to be a citizen. The ones that rely on leisure traffic are not starting this week - like Malta and Larnaca.
Delete