Wizz’s new Prague base to have 14 routes by end-July; overlapping SkyEurope on six routes

The Hungarian in Prague: Wizz Air competes head-to-head with at least one other carrier on eight of its 14 Prague routes including six services in rivalry with ‘local’ SkyEurope from neighbouring Slovakia.

At its two-aircraft base aircraft are in the air by 06:30 and return to Prague just before midnight. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday each aircraft operates four rotations and just three rotations on the remaining days.

Despite being Central Europe’s busiest airport (with over 12.6 million passengers in 2008), the region’s biggest LCC, Wizz Air, only began operations from Prague in February of this year. However, by the end of this month it will be serving 14 destinations from the airport with two based 180-seat A320s.

The first routes to Brussels Charleroi, London Luton, Milan Bergamo and Rome Fiumicino began on 19 February followed by the addition of Eindhoven and Paris Beauvais in June. This week saw the launch of five more new routes to Liverpool, Madrid, Malmö, Naples and Oslo Torp. Before the end of the month Barcelona, Bourgas and Thessaloniki will all be added. All of these routes will be served either three or four times per week with the exception of Bourgas and Thessaloniki which are only operated weekly (Saturday) until mid-September and London and Rome which are both served six-times weekly.

The aircraft rotation plan by day of week is shown below:

	Aircraft 1	Aircraft 2
Days 1357	06:00 – 09:00 MMX 09:30 – 13:25 BVA 14:10 – 17:30 EIN 18:00 – 22:20 TRF	06:20 – 09:55 BGY 10:25 – 14:40 LTN 15:25 – 18:55 CRL 19:25 – 23:50 FCO
Days 24	06:00 – 10:30 NAP 11:00 – 15:55 LPL 16:40 – 23:10 MAD	06:50 – 12:50 BCN 14:40 – 18:55 LTN 19:25 – 23:50 FCO
Day 6	06:00 – 10:30 NAP 11:00 – 15:55 LPL 16:40 – 23:10 MAD	06:20 – 12:20 BCN 12:55 – 18:05 BOJ 19:25 – 22:45 SKG
Source: Derived from Wizz Air timetable for w/c 3 August 2009

Direct competition is provided on the following routes:

Route	Competitor (WF)
Barcelona (BCN)	CSA (14), SmartWings (3), Vueling (5)
Bourgas (BOJ)	SkyEurope (2)
Thessaloniki (SKG)	CSA (7), SkyEurope (2), SmartWings (4)
Milan Bergamo (BGY)	SkyEurope (10)
Rome Fiumicino (FCO)	CSA (14), SkyEurope (6), SmartWings (2)
London Luton (LTN)	SkyEurope (7)
Madrid (MAD)	CSA (20), Iberia (7), SmartWings (1)
Naples (NAP)	SkyEurope (4)
Source: OAG Max Online for w/c 3 August 2009 WF: Weekly frequency

Planning more Prague routes? Wizz at Routes Europe in Prague in May – Matthew Wood Head of Network Development and Scheduling (left) and Akos Bus, Director Airport Development (centre). Prague Airport’s advertising makes it plain that it loves LCC traffic.

An LCC consumer (looking remarkably like Che Guevara) checks in for Brussels Charleroi – one of the first routes started by Wizz on February 19. From 22 September a further (thrice-weekly) service to Venice Treviso begins, although this will be operated by an aircraft from one of its other bases.

Wizz Air competes head-to-head with at least one other carrier on eight of 14 routes. Local rival SkyEurope operates on six of these eight. Although the airline has no direct competition on its Paris Beauvais, Brussels Charleroi, Eindhoven, Liverpool, Malmö and Oslo Torp routes, other airlines do link Prague to Paris Orly and CDG, Brussels Zaventum, Manchester, Copenhagen and Oslo.