Wizz Air announces 26 new routes (and one restart); almost 200 new routes for this summer
Wizz Air has revealed another 26 new routes and one resumption (Bucharest – Memmingen), with all but three to start this summer.
Eight routes will be from Bucharest, eight from Varna, and three from Odesa – the latter only joining Wizz Air’s network last year.
These 27 involve three brand-new airports for the carrier: Cagliari, Mykonos, and Pardubice.
Mykonos – Wizz Air’s eighth airport in Greece – will have six routes.
No doubt reflecting the carrier’s deal at Salzburg, an airport announced only in the past month or so, the Austrian city will now have eight Wizz Air routes with the addition of Varna.
59% of these 27 routes will have direct/indirect competition
Ten of these 27 routes will have direct competition, while six other routes will see indirect competition.
Where Wizz Air will compete with Romania’s Blue Air, it is noteworthy that the ULCC will typically have higher frequencies: further proof of how it is stepping up competition with the carrier, as Ryanair is with Ukraine’s Sky Up.
Almost 200 new routes this summer from aircraft being redistributed
Wizz’s very strong route growth recently – now pushing 200 new routes for this summer – and launching multiple new bases is the result of cutting aircraft from existing bases and redistributing them.
This is therefore not necessarily ‘real’ growth in the sense of absolute aircraft numbers or perhaps even the number of routes or passenger volume.
But it is growth in a network breadth sense.
Summary of routes
| Routing | Weekly frequency | Start date | Direct competition* (weekly frequency) | Indirect competition* (weekly frequency) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bucharest – Bergen | 2 | 8 August | None | None |
| Bucharest – Cagliari | 2 | 13 August | None | None |
| Bucharest -Copenhagen | 3 | 10 August | Blue Air (2), SAS (3)& | None |
| Bucharest – Hamburg | 4 | 9 August | Blue Air (2)# | None |
| Bucharest – Karlsruhe | 3 | 10 August | None | Blue Air: Stuttgart (3) |
| Bucharest – Memmingen^ | 2 | 8 August | None | Lufthansa: Munich (6)**; Tarom: Munch (12) |
| Bucharest -Mykonos | 2 | 11 August | None | None |
| Bucharest – Santorini | 2 | 9 August | None | None |
| Budapest – Mykonos | 2 | 1 August | None | None |
| Gdansk – Mykonos | 2 | 1 August | None | None |
| Katowice – Mykonos | 2 | 1 August | None | None |
| Kiev Boryspil – Pardubice | 3 | 1 September | Sky Up (5) | None |
| Lviv – Pardubice | 3 | 1 September | None | None |
| Milan Malpensa -Heraklion | 4 | 2 August | Blue Panorama (1), easyJet (4), Neos (2), Ryanair/Malta Air (2) | Alitalia: Linate (3), Blue Panorama: Bergamo (1); Neos: Bergamo (1); Ryanair/Malta Air: Bergamo (2) |
| Odesa – Bologna | 2 | 30 March | Ryanair (2)*** | None |
| Odesa – Milan Malpensa | 2 | 29 March | None | Ryanair: Bergamo (2)*** |
| Odesa -Rome Fiumicino | 2 | 29 March | Ryanair (2)*** | None |
| Sofia – Mykonos | 2 | 1 August | None | None |
| Varna -Athens | 3 | 24 July | None | None |
| Varna -Barcelona | 2 | 26 July | None | None |
| Varna -Brussels Charleroi | 3 | 25 July | None | TUI Belgium: Brussels (2) |
| Varna – Frankfurt Hahn | 2 | 24 July | None | Voyage Air: Frankfurt (2) |
| Varna – Hannover | 2 | 26 July | Eurowings (2) | None |
| Varna – Karlsruhe | 2 | 26 July | None | Eurowings: Stuttgart (3) |
| Varna -Nuremberg | 2 | 25 July | Eurowings (1) | None |
| Varna – Salzburg | 2 | 26 July | None | None |
| Vienna – Mykonos | 2 | 11 August | Austrian (2); Ryanair/Lauda (1)** | None |
| Source: OAG Schedules Analyser and each airline’s website. *Based on the week Wizz Air begins, unless otherwise stated. &SAS from the following week. #Tarom operated Bucharest – Hamburg until March. It is not yet clear if/when it will restart. **Ordinarily, Lufthansa would operate 21-weekly between Bucharest and Munich. Ryanair/Lauda’s Vienna – Mykonos was to be twice-weekly. ***Summer 2021 schedules are not available yet, so competition is based on this summer. ^Bucharest – Memmingen operated until March this year. | ||||
Booming Bucharest
As one example, almost 10,000 flew indirectly between Bucharest – Wizz Air’s third-largest airport – and Bergen last year, OAG Traffic Analyser shows.
This existing passenger volume is higher than many of Wizz Air’s new routes – with the market then very strongly stimulated.
From Bucharest, key unserved routes – with 12,000+ indirect passengers – include Luxembourg, Ljubljana, Manchester (Wizz Air operates Bucharest – Liverpool), Gothenburg (served by Wizz Air in 2018), Vilnius, Bilbao (Wizz Air operates Bucharest – Santander), and Toulouse.
Greece’s growth
Greek islands have been a focal point of Wizz Air’s recent growth, with the carrier now serving Corfu, Heraklion, Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini, and Zakynthos.
Bucharest will have new routes to both Santorini and Mykonos from August. Both Greek islands were the Romanian capital’s second- and third-largest unserved Greek markets last year. Bucharest – Heraklion, announced previously, had ~71% indirect passengers last year – and was clearly underserved.
With about 6,000 passengers, Rhodes is Bucharest’s number-one unserved market to Greece – and an obvious future addition for Wizz Air.
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