One of the fastest growing airlines in Europe, Wizz Air announced this week a major expansion of its operations in Poland for next year.
The popular low cost carrier says that economic passenger demand has caused the airline to announce that from 30th March 2019 the airline will close its Poznan base, however, the carrier will continue to operate a number of its routes from Poznan, including the Paris-Beauvais, London-Luton, Eindhoven, Doncaster-Sheffield and Torp-Sandefjord services. All affected employees at the Poznan base will be offered opportunities elsewhere in the Wizz Air network.
The airline will add a 7th aircraft to its Gdansk fleet, allowing it to launch four new services from the Pomeranian region. The additional A320 will allow the airline to connect Gdansk with Kharkiv from 28th October and Oslo, Kutaisi and Bremen, from early April, as well as increasing the number of weekly flights on popular routes to Aberdeen, Lviv, Gothenburg and Kyiv. The new aircraft will also facilitate the creation of more than 30 additional direct jobs with the airline at the Gdansk base.
The airline will also convert its Warsaw fleet to an all-A321 fleet and add two new routes and increased capacity from the Polish capital. It will also add one new service from Wroclaw to Kharkiv in Ukraine. Upgrading the Warsaw fleet to an all-A321 fleet, that have a capacity of 230 seats, will add 11% more capacity to the airline’s operations from the Polish capital, while continue to keep its fares low. The all-A321 fleet will contribute to a more efficient, more silent and more environment-friendly operations thanks to the state-of-the-art ergonomics of the Airbus A321.
Speaking at a press conference in Gdansk, Johan Eidhagen, Chief Marketing Officer at Wizz Air, said the announcement, "Reflects our commitment to our Polish customers and aptitude for reacting to the dynamic travel patterns. We continuously monitor travel demand to best meet the needs of our customers through low ticket fares and great services and seek opportunities to optimize and improve the network. After careful consideration, we decided to adjust our Poznan network plan and take advantage of growth opportunities by reallocating the capacity to other Polish routes. We are introducing seven exciting new routes from Poland, by reacting to growth opportunities we are creating our first ever Airbus A321 fleet in Warsaw and increase Wizz Air’s Polish footprint with greater seat capacity for 2019. We thank our colleagues at Poznan for their hard work and are looking forward to be working with them at other Polish bases.”.
