Low-cost carrier Wizz Air has announced it will establish
three new bases in Europe over the coming months despite hardships faced by the
airline industry in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Hungarian airline will base three aircraft in Dortmund,
Germany from August 2020, one at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport from September
and two in Bacau, Romania from October. It will also base one additional
aircraft in Belgrade, taking the airport to three dedicated planes.
Wizz Air began serving Dortmund airport in 2004 and now
operates 30 routes to and from the area. With three Airbus A320s based there,
the carrier plans to launch 18 new services to ten countries, including
Alghero, Bari, Catania, Naples, Athens, Corfu, Heraklion, Rhodes, Santorini,
Thessaloniki, Fuerteventura, Lisbon, Marrakesh, Podgorica, Reykjavik, Suceava,
Split and Zaporizhia.
From St Petersburg, Wizz Air will operate five new routes –
Salzburg, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm Skavsta and Malta. Meanwhile, it will
launch 12 new routes from Bacau, including Luton, Liverpool John Lennon, Turin,
Venice Treviso, Bologna, Rome Fiumicino, Milan Bergamo, Catania, Larnaca,
Memmingen/Munich West, Billund and Brussels Charleroi.
In May, Wizz Air announced it would open bases in Milan
Malpensa, Larnaca, Lviv and Tirana from 1 July with 11 aircraft and more than 50 new
routes.
The carrier said in April that it would make 1,000 roles
redundant as a result of the coronavirus crisis, representing 19 per cent of
its workforce. Later that month, the UK government deemed the airline’s UK subsidiary was eligible for the Covid Corporate Financing Facility and it raised
£300 million through the scheme.