Wizz Air informations and photos

Wizz Air, legally incorporated as Wizz Air Hungary Ltd. (Hungarian: Wizz Air Hungary Légiközlekedési Kft.) and stylised as W!ZZ Air, is a Hungarian ultra-low-cost carrier with its head office in Budapest. The airline serves many cities across Europe, as well as some destinations in North Africa and the Middle East. It has the largest fleet of any Hungarian airline, although it is not a flag carrier, and currently serves 44 countries. Its Jersey-based parent company, Wizz Air Holdings plc, is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. As of 2020, the airline has its largest bases at Budapest Airport and Luton Airport and flies to 164 airports.

The airline was established in September 2003. The lead investor is Indigo Partners, an American private equity firm specialising in transportation investments. The first flight was made from Katowice International Airport on 19 May 2004. The airline's CEO is József Váradi, former CEO of Malév Hungarian Airlines. The company is registered in Pest County (Hungary).

On 25 February 2015, Wizz Air shares started to be traded on the London Stock Exchange.

In November 2017, Wizz Air announced that they were planning to launch a British division called Wizz Air UK. The airline is based at London Luton, mainly to take advantage of a number of take-off and landing slots acquired when Monarch Airlines entered administration in 2017. The airline applied successfully to the CAA for an AOC and a Type A Operating Licence. The airline launched operations in March 2018 using British registered aircraft. Wizz Air UK will start to take over the flights to the UK that are currently operated by Wizz Air. Wizz Air said that the airline will employ up to 100 staff by the end of 2018.

In November 2018, it was reported that Wizz Air had announced plans to reactivate its Wizz Air Ukraine subsidiary, approximately three years after it was shut down. Under the plan, Wizz Air Ukraine will seek to complete certification in 2019 following the acquisition of twenty A320/321 neo jets. Bases will be developed in Kyiv as well as other cities across the country. By 2025, it aims to have a passenger throughput of 6 million passengers per annum.

By early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had created a case of force majeure in European aviation, gradually forcing airline fleets to land, including the majority of Wizz Air aircraft. Although it was announced in March that no redundancies were planned, one-fifth of the staff was redeemed when it became clear that air travel across the continent was shutting down. In April 2020, based on passenger numbers, Wizz Air became Europe's largest low-cost airline with 78,000 passengers. By mid-June, they had reached 40 percent of their previous year's normal weekly revenue, while the proportion of no-shows fell from 80 percent in April to 30 percent. In July 2020, the airline announced that it will form a joint venture with the Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company.

IIn October 2020 Wizz took delivery of an A330-200F freight aircraft (HA-LHU formally Qatar Cargo) which it operates on behalf of the Hungarian Government as 'Hungary Air Cargo'. In the same month the airline announced that its first Scandinavian base would be opened at Oslo's Gardermoen Airport in November 2020: the two aircraft based there would also undertake domestic flights within Norway. However, ticket sales for domestic flights after 13 June 2021 were subsequently stopped.

In 2020, Wizz Air carried a total of 16.6 million passengers, 42 per cent of the 40 million passengers of the previous year. At the same time, they also tried to see the pandemic as an opportunity, opening 260 new routes and 13 bases, one of them at London's second largest airport, Gatwick.

In the spring of 2021, as the third wave of the coronavirus epidemic arrived, the airline's CEO pitched Wizz Air to investors as a "rare ray of investment hope". He said that he hoped that air transport would be restored by 2024–2025, and that he was confident that Wizz Air would be the only airline to continue its investments, made possible by the fact that it had the highest liquidity in the entire airline industry.

Wizz Air has prioritised fleet development and airport construction in its investments, with the opening of Brasov airport planned for March 2021.

On 3 February 2021, Wizz Air announced the opening of its second base in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after Tuzla; the airline would open a base at Sarajevo with one Airbus A320. The airline announced nine new destinations from Sarajevo with 21 weekly departures.

In April 2021, as planned, Wizz Air added Abu Dhabi to its services, offering connections to Europe beyond the UAE to neighbouring Arab countries.

By July 2021, Wizz Air had reached their 2019 capacity. Their plan was to develop their fleet of 140 aircraft to a capacity of 500 by the end of the decade.

In August 2021, company management announced that they plan to hire 4,600 new pilots by 2030, with the first part of their plan to train and hire nearly 500 pilots by the end of 2021.

In September 2021, rival low-cost carrier easyJet claimed it had rejected a takeover offer from Wizz Air.

On 14 November 2021, on the first day of the Dubai Airshow, Wizz Air was one of four airlines that ordered additional A321neo jets. Wizz Air is due to receive a total of 75 A321neos and 27 A321XLRs, adding up to 102 new aircraft.

The current head office can be found in Laurus offices (Laurus Irodaház) Building B, Budapest, since March 2015. Previously, its head office was at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport. Wizz Air signed the lease agreement in October 2010 and moved there with 150 employees in June 2011. The airline occupied 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, housed about 150 employees. Before the time its head office was at the airport, it was in the Airport Business Park C2 in Vecsés, close to the airport.

As is common with all European low-cost carriers, Wizz Air prefers to use smaller or secondary airports to reduce costs and fees incurred by service usage. It also has a buy-on-board food service called Wizz Café as well as a second service called Wizz Boutique, which is for other items.

Wizz Air started new services between Katowice and London Luton in 2008. In January 2008, flights started from Gdansk to Gothenburg, Bournemouth and Coventry. In summer 2008, Wizz Air restarted summer seasonal 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; and Warsaw to Corfu and Burgas. It also restarted its three-times-weekly service from London–Luton to Burgas. On 2 October 2008, Wizz Air announced that a number of its Romanian services would have increased frequency following an order for three Airbus A320 aircraft.

In February 2012, Wizz Air announced that it would start flights from Debrecen International Airport to London, beginning 18 June 2012. On 11 September 2012, Wizz Air announced new routes to and from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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