Tuzla Airport in crisis mode as second airline shuts base in six months

Greek carrier Lumiwings has confirmed the closure of its base in Tuzla after the airline said it failed to secure financial support from the airport. All of the airline’s flights from the city have been discontinued with immediate effect, wiping out a total of 100 flights in March, which would could have carried a total of 14.900 passengers. The airline also becomes the second in under half a year to close its base in the city following Wizz Air's exit last September. Lumiwings had been granted 1.5 million euros by local authorities from the Tuzla Canton government for the upkeep of six routes from late December until late March. Five of them - Esbjerg, Halmstad, Maastricht, Stockholm Skavsta and Saarbrucken - were launched, with services to Istanbul planned to commence next week.

In a statement, Lumiwings said, “Due to the decision of Tuzla International Airport not to support the routes, we are sorry to announce, that all Lumiwings commercial flights to and from Tuzla have been cancelled, starting from February 27 2024 with immediate effect. Tickets that have been purchased will be reimbursed and compensated, in accordance with the regulations in force. We, as Lumiwings, are truly sorry for the inconvenience”. The airline had a 149-seat Boeing 737-700 aircraft stationed in Tuzla. The management of Tuzla Airport claimed only two days ago that the carrier’s aircraft was undergoing maintenance and that flights would resume within days. It has since said the flights have been discontinued due to poor loads.

Tuzla Airport finds itself in a precarious situation once again and is now left with just nine departing flights per week, all of which are operated by Wizz Air. The budget carrier, which closed its base in Tuzla just last September, discontinuing over a dozen routes in the process, now maintains services to Basel, Dortmund and Memmingen. Tuzla Airport will have 15.730 seats on the Wizz Air flights in March, down from a total of 68.418 in March 2023, when both Wizz Air and Ryanair maintained operations from the airport. The latter also discontinued services from Tuzla following a spat over taxes.

Earlier this month, the Tuzla Canton government held a public call for interested carriers to apply to operate flights out of the city in return for subsidies. Under the terms of the tender, a total of nineteen destinations are subject to funding. They include Hahn, Berlin, Saarbrucken, Hamburg, Baden Baden, Nuremberg, Cologne, and Friedrichshafen in Germany, followed by Gothenburg, Stockholm, Halmstad, and Malmo in Sweden, then Esbjerg and Billund in Denmark, Vienna and Salzburg in Austria, Maastricht and Eindhoven in the Netherlands, as well as Istanbul in Turkey. The results of the tender have still not been made public so far, however, a new public call will be held in March.