Low cost carrier Wizz Air has begun updating its network for the 2026/27 winter season, with a number of early changes affecting services from cities across the former Yugoslavia in the lead-up to the winter timetable, which begins on October 25.
Wizz Air will discontinue flights between Tuzla and Beauvais on August 29. The three weekly service was launched only on March 31. Similarly, services to Gothenburg will end on October 21. As reported last week, the airline has also reduced capacity at its Tuzla base by replacing its 239-seat Airbus A321neos with 180-seat A320neos. The move will lower capacity by around 22% compared to the airline's original summer schedule. Local authorities have said they remain in discussions with Wizz Air over the possibility of a third based aircraft by the end of the year, although the carrier has not commented on the matter.
The low cost airline will suspend flights between Belgrade and Friedrichshafen at the end of the summer season, with the last service scheduled for October 24. The twice weekly route has been operated intermittently over the past seven years. Wizz Air first served the city pair from May 2017 until January 2018, resumed operations from July 2020 until January 2021, and relaunched it in June 2025. The airline has yet to make any significant adjustments to its wider Belgrade network for the winter season, which could be heavily affected by the potential closure of its base in the Serbian capital due to changes to Serbia's aviation regulations for foreign carriers. Today at 11.00 CEST, Wizz Air is due to submit a petition signed by more than 20.000 people to the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate, the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure. The petition calls on authorities to keep Wizz Air’s base open.
Elsewhere in the region, Wizz Air is extending operations on its new Bucharest - Dubrovnik service, which was launched just two weeks ago. The seasonal route, originally scheduled to end on September 18, will now operate until October 23. Flights will run twice per week during the extended period, instead of the current three weekly services maintained through September 18. At the same time, the airline is reducing frequencies on its new Budapest - Zadar route. Services, initially planned at four weekly flights until September 19, will be cut to three per week from August 4 and will conclude as originally planned.
During the upcoming winter season, Wizz Air will serve fifteen destinations from Podgorica, compared to 24 this summer, with fourteen routes becoming seasonal. The airline's winter network from the Montenegrin capital will include Barcelona, Basel, Budapest, Beauvais, Baden Baden, Catania, Cologne, Dortmund, Hamburg, Ljubljana, Maastricht, Malmo, Memmingen, Milan Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino.
Meanwhile, Wizz Air has based its seventh aircraft in Skopje, enabling the launch of two new routes this week, to Palermo and Alghero, as well as frequency increases on several existing services, as previously announced. On the other hand, it will end flights between Bratislava and Ohrid on October 22. The route was initially to operate throughout the winter.
That Tuzla base is shrinking fast
ReplyDeleteWizz Air isn't cutting because it wants to. It's cutting because it constantly evaluates which routes make money. That's how LCCs survive.
DeleteThats how all airlines survive (in theory at least)
DeleteThat is literally the definition of "it wants to".
DeleteHave a feeling many of those 24 TGD routes won't be back next summer
ReplyDeleteYou'll be surprised. Every flight me or my friends took from TGD lately was at least 90% full. Don't know what your feeling is based on but Montenegro is becoming increasingly popular with tourists from Northern and Western Europe.
DeleteYesss. And it will only increase once we welcome them i to the EU.
DeleteActually, by Serbian law, any petition that collects more than 5.000 signatures has to be debated in the parliament.
ReplyDeleteI think it was 5.000, not sure though.
It is 30,000 verified signatures
DeleteThey should have put a booth up in Knez Mihailova, got the 30,000 signatures and verified them. This way, the petition is meaningless.
DeleteThe only way they will resolve this is if they meet with the president and tell him they will make a meaningful donation for his upcoming election campaign. Otherwise, pisi propalo as they would say.
Delete20.000 is more or less nothing.
Delete^ true
DeleteIt is a legal issue, not a popularity contest. So the petition is useless.
DeleteAll legal issues can be changed in one second if politicians decide to do so
DeleteA petition is a good indicator of what people/voters think of a certain law. This one should be revised as it's obviously quite unpopular.
Delete10.13
DeleteIt's a tax problem, not political one
11:55 oh it is defiantly political.
DeleteIt could be network planning / management decision. If Wizz launches many new routes based on what other airlines already serve in the same area, then it's management that can change the course.
Deletewinter period LJU-BEG? LJU-SJJ?
ReplyDeleteNo. Of course not LOL
DeleteTuzla keeps losing routes
ReplyDeleteAnd they are subsidized!
DeleteA reminder that airlines don't owe airports or governments anything. If a route isn't profitable, it's gone.
DeleteSubsidies help make routed profitable
Deletebut only if you have pax
DeleteFriedrichshafen never seemed to have enough demand outside the summer. I'm not surprised it's being dropped again.
ReplyDeleteThis is false info. We learnt from Wizz bot that they are the only one expanding and growing at BEG. Everyone love to fly with they, such a wonderful and reputable company, which evil DCV wants to destroy
Delete^ what a clever observation
DeleteYeah, the cancellation of friedrichshafen is enough reason to kick out Wizz air from the country. Great idea!
DeleteFriedrichshafen is a strange airport. Brilliant location near so many rich towns but with really few flights. It doesnt really even support year round flights to London which is an industry standard. Memmingen is, however, only an hour away or so.
DeleteI do not understand why comments such as 09.18 are even allowed? We already proved you wrong a few days ago. Drop it.
DeleteBecause (in theory) this is a place even silly opinions can be aired.
Deletetheir only year round destination is SKP
DeleteAnother race lost to JU. It wasn't too smart attacking ZRH which is JU's fortress for decades now.
Delete@10:14
You proved nothing to anybody, because you are writing only lies and utter nonsenseness! Your Wizz air, "which is only growing at BEG" lost another route, despite your efforts to show them irreplaceable. Your PR is poor, as usual.
You do realize that Swiss also flies from ZRH to BEG? They have a lot of flights and capacity on the route.
DeleteSo you are saying Anon 17.30 that Wizz Air is only losing routes from BEG? I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Heck I don't know if you know what you are trying to say.
I know which company i would rather use between Belgrade and Zurich.
DeleteAir Baltic
Delete@17:50
DeleteYou are the one repeating that Government is protecting JU. Now you want to say that it's also protecting LX?
I still don't understand why Tuzla keeps talking about a third aircraft when they can't even keep the capacity they already had.
ReplyDeleteSame. If Tuzla gets a third aircraft after all these cuts, I'll be genuinely surprised.
DeleteTuzla management is delusional and so are the few fanboys in the comments.
DeleteAko propadaju leisure rute- dabogda propale i sve gastabajterske linije.
ReplyDeletevery smart comment... 🤔
DeleteIt's unfortunate to see Beauvais disappear so quickly from Tuzla. New routes need time to mature, not just one summer season.
ReplyDeleteImagine how poorly it performed.
DeleteWhy don't you pay for Wizz to fly there while the route "matures"
DeleteRyanair is flighing Beauvais - Sarajevo on same days as Wizz Beauvais - Tuzla, that's not smart. The Transavia Paris Orly - Sarajevo is performing well too, so the concurrence is hard for such a small market
DeleteTransavia Sarajevo-Orly will finish same as Easyjet in Skopje to Paris orly , in summer they are doing great but winter numbers go down and next year they will cancel the route. Those routes can work summer seasonal but not whole year as demand in winter is really bad
DeleteThe real winner here is Skopje. New aircraft, new routes and more frequencies
ReplyDeleteairline is adding capacity where it sees demand.
DeleteSkopje keeps winning because Wizz Air knows it can grow there without unnecessary uncertainty.
DeleteTrue. And nobody else to compete with as of yet. Its been handled well for the country's connectivity and they know it.
Deletebut thats in summer and the article is about winter. We will see less freq in winter too
DeleteAny chance for Palermo to be extended in the winter from Skopje and any gossips for new routes/updates?
ReplyDeleteNo.
Deletewe will see, Lignja said something about it. If TGD can keep Catania in winter season why not SKP Palermo
DeleteI do hope too as well that Palermo will not be cut, at least support 2x weekly, I think there might be a market
DeleteWho goes there in December? I mean what type of passenger?
DeleteIf not year round they should at least try to extend it until end of Nov
Deleteescape of кочан зима type of passengers
DeleteIts not exactly warm in Sicily in January.
DeleteIt's not exactly very cold either but it can be very rainy, wet and grey
DeleteI think it would be better to just have higher frequency on other routes, both for wizz and for passengers.
DeletePalermo should be extended at least to end of October and will work excelent
DeleteTuzla desperately needs another airline. Depending almost entirely on Wizz Air has proven to be a risky strategy in the past.
ReplyDeleteIm not sure thats correct...as of yet. There is no evidence that wizzair are in danger of leaving or reducing. Sure the odd route by other airlines is helpful but North Macedonia nowadays has excelent connectivity.
Delete(Sorry that was for Skopje) tuzla is luckt to have what it has!
DeleteIf the Belgrade base stays open, I expect Wizz to announce new routes for next summer. If it closes, it will take years to recover those connections.
ReplyDeletePassengers will be the biggest losers if Belgrade loses its Wizz Air base. Less competition almost always means higher fares.
DeleteYeah. The Serbian consumer will pay the price. Which is really sad.
DeleteWhy not? After all, isn't Serbia in its "Golden Ages"?
DeleteMany of Wizz routes from Belgrade already have competition to the same or nearby airports, so there's not too many connections to "recover". For other routes, Easy and Ryan might show interest if and AFTER Wizz closes them down. Even if they don't, use Air Serbia 2023 season as an example of major growth on a short notice.
DeleteWishful thinking. Either by someone rich or someone doesnt travel much.
Delete^16:22 although JU would not be able to make routes such as Memmingham and Eindhoven work. Furthermore JU depend on transfers for their business model. You know full well that there is a potential for significant short-term decline in passenger numbers if, lets say wizz reduced its operation by half. Anyway, us aviation lovers hope that wont be the case.
DeleteSorry, what will BEG lose exactly?? Is there any single W6 route which is not already copy/paste from successful JU routes? I think only Grenoble, after JU dropped LYS is without JU connection in the vicinity and it is practically charter with 1 pw in very short term. Anyway, even there GVA is 2 hours drive.
DeleteDo not fall for Wizzibot stories that JU is overpriced and poor Serbian passengers will have to pay millions to fly anywhere. That's only his poor PR. JU is very affordable, reputable and reliable company, all opposite of W6.
BEG will lose a competitive edge and fares will go up. That's never a good thing for any certain market out there.
DeleteIf JU is all that you mentioned then why did they grow only 3% last year and 2.9% so far this year? Shouldn't their growth be much higher?
Again you and your poor PR. JU grew from 2,75 mil in 2022 to 5 mil in 2026, while W6 didn't grow at all. They had 4 planes in 2022 and 4 planes in 2026. Actually they lost Abu Dhabi in the meantime, so they declined. Your spinning doesn't help you at all, when you are at the aviation blog. People here know some facts.
DeleteWe still want wizzair to stay.
DeleteWizz already confirmed they won't leave Belgrade market.
DeleteSure they should stay, they just need to follow the rules
DeleteBelgrade Airport would lose a huge amount of traffic if Wizz reduces its presence. Hopefully everyone involved understands what's at stake.
ReplyDeleteVINCI seems to be ok with it
DeleteUntil the shareholder meeting when they see the figures.
DeleteI don't think that's true anymore now that Valencia and Madrid are bases. Wizz could make it work without having aircraft based in Belgrade
DeleteYeah man. Right...
DeleteOh I am certain MAD-BEG will stay and they might cut ALC-BEG but replace it with VLC-BEG.
DeleteVLC will be tricky for JU as its CEO said that there was no extra demand why they added extra departures. I guess once Wizz Air launches this market they will have to reduce or suspend VLC.
Could we see BEG-VLC by JU go summer seasonal, what do you guys think?
^ seems like you wpuld be excited by that.
Delete* I dont want to see any routes cut by either JU or Wizz.
DeleteAnon 10.19 of course I am excited, the more competition the lower the fares. Isn't that what you want as well?
DeleteNo, it seems you are excited that someone would discontinue the route.
DeleteWell if that someone is replaced by another with lower fares then hell year. We should all be happy about air travel becoming more affordable.
DeleteWhat a genuine lack of understanding of the aviation industry... Sad
DeleteOk can you please enlighten us then? I mean since you are so genuinely versed in civil aviation. How will JU keeping BEG-VLC lead to lower fares than W6 flying VLC-BEG when Wizz Air's average fare is much lower than JU's.
DeleteI have no reason to get into a discussion with a cheerleader. Keep cheering that an airline discontinues a route.
Delete@10:37 "the more competition the lower the fares. Isn't that what you want as well?"
DeleteMy read on this: Wizz fans calling Ryan to give Wizz competition, so that fares go down and passengers enjoy the outcome of W6/FR fight.
Yes that is correct, we all want Ryanair to come as well!!
DeleteAnon 12.54 so no arguments I guess
Oh gosh i would love Ryanair to open a base in Belgrade and base 4 aircraft. Then we'd be really talking options.
Delete@12:15
DeleteI would enlighten you, but your knowledge doesn't go further than "GO W6!".
Simply, JU is profitable with 70% of E190, while W6 needs 95+% of A321. JU always set lower prices(similar to LCC) and add more frequencies and poor W6 simply give up. Same old story. That's why JU grew to 40 planes in 12 years and W6 "grew" to 4! (FOUR!) planes for the same period.
JU also maintains its profitability only because it offers connections. Which is fine. Point to point it cannot hold its own as well.
DeleteNot true, pretty sure they can fly Belgrade Tivat all summer without a single transfer and still make a ton of money.
DeleteTuzla i Wizz su totalno promašili neke rute,a i cijeli red letenja,zato sad imaju smanjenja i ukidanja.
ReplyDeleteNaravno kad su se zaletali bez plana ili cilj im je bilo samo da uzmu pare , Tuzla nije takav market da moze napuniti low cost avijone kao sto Wizz air ocekuje i sta je kod njih praksa a to je 80+ % LF , to nikada nece biti u Tuzli , zato sada smajuju i ukidaju posto so uvideli da su pogresili u procenama
DeleteLF u Tuzli je uvijek bio jako dobar,pa Wizz je imao bazu 10 godina u Tuzli.Istina je da neke linije sada imaju los LF ali to je losa procjena Wizza sto su odabrali te linije pored potrebnijih...
DeleteSada ima i Ryanair u Sarajevu. Nije ista situacija kao pre 10 godina
DeleteNista nije kao prije 10 god...
DeleteWell I said it before and I will say it again. Gasto markets are the first to be hit when the economic crisis shows up. Wizz Air is not just cutting here, they also announced several other cuts for this winter.
ReplyDeleteBTS-DTM
BTS-PDV
BTS-SUF
BTS-OHD
RMO-TRN
RMO-NAP
CRA-ATH
LGW-JED
LGW-RAK
LGW-MED
This is on top of other cancellations like the ones in TSR we saw a few weeks ago.
Pink sheriff...
DeleteYes, they are cutting capacity from poor markets to focus on richer ones like Spain. Just look how successful they are in Italy.
DeleteLondon Gatwick is well known to be a poor market.
DeleteA number of discontinued routes are in fact from/to Italy.
All London airports except LHR serve gasto traffic especially to eastern Europe and migrant countries in the MENA region.
Delete^ what nonsense
Delete12:43
DeleteI love these comments with the attitude "I said it before and I will say it again"
You use route cuts to make some point about economics as though routes are supposed to be permanent.
What about these new routes:
Bilbao - Málaga
Bilbao - Santiago
Madrid - Asturias
Madrid - Palma
Madrid - Santiago
Valencia - Asturias
Valencia - Bilbao
Valencia - Palma
Valencia - Santander
Valencia - Santiago
Almería - Bucharest
Chisinau - Alicante
Chisinau - Gatwick
Chisinau - Frankfurt Hahn
Budapest - Oslo
Budapest - Marsa Alam
Vilnius - Berlin
Varna - Basel
Prag - Poprad Tatry
All of these routes were launched in the last 3 days.
13:50 Madrid and Valencia bases are to be opened in November, so these flights are just announced but not started (some start in Nov. and some will start in Dec). I am quite curios to see how these flights from MAD and VLC will do, as I think on each one of them they are already facing the competition (Ryanair, Iberia...) so let's see how they'll do in Spain.
DeleteAnon 13.50
DeleteOnce upon a time people also wrote about these new routes being launched and today we see that they are cancelled. No one is certain those you listed won't be cut as well down the road, am I right or am I right?
Also are you the same one who keeps on insisting EU economy is thriving? I got news for ya bud, it's not.
Eu economy is doing better than those few states outside it mate
Delete@12:53 i assume you mean for wizzair? Because London and the area south of it are among the richest and best markets on earth.
DeleteHey mate 17.02 no one said otherwise however no one can seriously claim the EU economy is doing well. Heck even Brussels admitted it and is trying to organize reforms.
DeleteAnon 12.53 I meant for Wizz Air and for their customers, that is why I specifically mentioned it does not apply to LHR which is extremely premium.
@17:46 Heathrow is connected to the capitals of many former communist countries, juts sadly not some of the ex yu ones. London's assortment of airports offer variety and choice.
DeleteThe Eu economy still represents a massive and dynmatic space. To say ite 'not doing well' is just basic and without depth. But sure, state it.
What about the Sarajevo - Rome route ?
ReplyDeleteI knewed since then that Ohrid-Bratislava will not work as same as Vienna did , the route to Vienna was always full and very convinient. It will be good if they ever go back to the Austrian capital in future.
ReplyDeletePRN route is also kinda ruined since the move, VIE was their best performing route now its only 3 weekly in einter
DeleteYes same scenario , I dont think so that Bratislava will ever be real replacement for Vienna , probably not.
Deletenot flying SKP-VIE (but BTS instead) is a missed opportunity. Could go daily
DeleteWe love Wizz Air!
ReplyDeleteWe do
DeleteBut investors don't, and that's what matters. Wizz Air Holdings stock is about 25% of where it was 5 years ago. Indigo dropped ownership to just 14% in Feb and that shows lack of confidence (and love) for Wizzair.
DeleteWell consumers in Serbia and eslewhere dont care for that. They want the airline to remain. Those who dont want it are clearly selfish
DeleteWell consumers should start caring. If airline is not doing well, they won't be able to get aircraft, service them, pay employees and one day those consumers won't be able to fly with them.
DeleteWhat a load of rubbish. Silly observation.
DeleteNo, we don't
DeleteIf it's a silly observation, then convince investors to come back to Wizz and lift share price 4x higher than 5 years ago, not 1/4 as it stands now. Money talks.
DeleteBusinessew rise and fall. Like states.
Delete