Low-cost airline «Wizz Air»

Wizz Air is a Hungarian budget airline, the largest airline in the country. The main office is located in Budapest. Founded in September 2003, the company operates passenger flights mainly to European countries, as well as to Morocco, Israel, the UAE and Kazakhstan.The main investor was the American company Indigo Partners, which specializes in transport investments. The first flight took place on 19 May 2004 from Katowice, 19 days after Poland and Hungary joined the EU and joined the common European aviation market. The airline carried 250,000 passengers in the first three and a half months of operation and almost 1.4 million passengers in the first year of operation. In 2008, the airline carried 5.9 million passengers. As of December 2010, flights were operated in more than 150 directions.

By the end of 2012, the company had carried 50 million passengers.

CEO and Chairman of the Board — Jozef Varadi, former CEO of Malév, another Hungarian airline. The company is registered in London, subsidiaries have been opened in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. Wizz Air Bulgaria started operating in September 2005. Wizz Air Ukraine was established in Kyiv and operated from 2008 to 2015.

In 2018, the company’s turnover amounted to € 1.948 billion (2018), net profit of € 275.1 million.

In fiscal year 2019, the airline carried 34.6 million passengers. The average age of aircraft is 4.6 years, which is the lowest in Europe.

In 2019, the company was recognized as the most environmentally friendly airline thanks to the use of the latest model Airbus A321neo, which has the lowest carbon emissions among similar aircraft.

On April 14, 2020, the company announced staff reductions due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company planned to cut 1,000 workers and return 32 old planes to lessors by the end of 2023. It was also planned to reduce salaries by 14-22%.

In May 2021, the company refused to fly through Belarus in response to the interception of flight 4978 Ryanair Athens — Vilnius.

In December 2021, Wizz Air canceled 36 flights from Poland and 20 flights from all cities of Ukraine for the period from January to March 2022, due to poor results of the vaccination campaign.