Wizz Air, a fast-growing low-cost carrier in Central Europe will introduce services from Gdansk to Tampere in Finland from June 12th, and from Warsaw to Bristol (UK) from September 19th - both on a twice-weekly basis. Routes News examines its revived interest in Poland.
Offering 1350 weekly flights across its entire network, Wizz Air's commitment to Poland can be seen where three of its five largest bases are at the Polish airports of Katowice, Warsaw and Gdansk.
The following table shows its current weekly seat capacity from the five bases:
|
|
Weekly Seats |
Destinations |
Wizz Market Share |
|
London Luton |
18,396 |
16 |
9% |
|
Katowice |
15,768 |
24 |
8% |
|
Warsaw |
12,848 |
22 |
6% |
|
Budapest |
11,096 |
20 |
5% |
|
Gdansk |
10,658 |
18 |
5% |
(Source Flightbase 14-20 June 2010)
Wizz Air has chosen to centre its Polish network around six points: Warsaw, Katowice, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Poznan and Lodz, which serve a total of 28 destinations.
Within Poland, Wizz Air is the third largest operator according to scheduled seat capacity, behind national carrier LOT, which has a 38% market share. Ryanair is the second largest in terms of seat capacity with an 18% share and Wizz has a 17% share of the overall Polish market.
The newly announced routes (Warsaw-Bristol and Gdansk-Tampere) mark a renewed focus on the Polish market for Wizz, which had, in fact reduced capacity in the market in 2009. However, this year there has been a capacity increase of 12,118 weekly seats. (Wizz now operates almost 50,000 weekly seats in Poland, according to Flightbase, 14-20 June, 2010).
The carrier continues pursuing its strategy of serving East to West, by creating Eastern European bases that connect to Western Europe. This strategy is evident in the table below, which highlights its current network from Poland.
|
Origin (Polish Airport) |
|||||||
|
(GDN) |
(KTW) |
(LCJ) |
(POZ) |
(WAW) |
(WRO) |
Grand Total |
|
|
(LTN) |
14 |
14 |
6 |
20 |
7 |
61 |
|
|
(DTM) |
7 |
14 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
30 |
|
(TRF) |
4 |
5 |
3 |
5 |
2 |
19 |
|
|
(BGY) |
2 |
7 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
18 |
|
|
(DSA) |
4 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
16 |
|
|
(NYO) |
5 |
3 |
3 |
5 |
16 |
||
|
(BVA) |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
15 |
|
|
(ORK) |
3 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
13 |
|
|
(LPL) |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|||
|
(MMX) |
4 |
3 |
4 |
11 |
|||
|
(EIN) |
2 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
11 |
||
|
(FCO) |
2 |
2 |
7 |
11 |
|||
|
(CRL) |
3 |
7 |
10 |
||||
|
(FRL) |
3 |
3 |
2 |
8 |
|||
|
(LBC) |
5 |
3 |
8 |
||||
|
(BCN) |
2 |
4 |
2 |
8 |
|||
|
(CIA) |
7 |
7 |
|||||
|
(TKU) |
4 |
2 |
6 |
||||
|
(CGN) |
3 |
3 |
6 |
||||
|
(TSF) |
3 |
3 |
6 |
||||
|
(MAD) |
3 |
2 |
5 |
||||
|
(BGO) |
3 |
2 |
5 |
||||
|
(PIK) |
2 |
3 |
5 |
||||
|
(HHN) |
4 |
4 |
|||||
|
(BOJ) |
2 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
|||
|
(NRN) |
4 |
4 |
|||||
|
(PSA) |
2 |
2 |
|||||
|
(GSE) |
2 |
2 |
|||||
|
Total Weekly Frequency |
73 |
108 |
2 |
26 |
88 |
26 |
323 |
Source: Flightbase: 14-20 June, 2010
Wizz's top ten destinations from Poland are in the UK, Sweden Italy and France, highlighting the strategy of serving East to West.
Ryanair, the second largest operator in Poland and Wizz seem to avoid competing on routes in the Polish market. For example, Ryanair does not serve Warsaw, while Wizz does not serve Krakow, and in total the two low-cost operators only compete on two routes: Poznan to Bergamo and Wroclaw to Bergamo.
Where Next for Wizz?
Wizz has a large number of A320 aircraft on order and will be looking for new routes from its existing Polish markets.
The low-cost operator may look at serving new capital city markets that it does not currently serve. Having announced last year that it will fly to Madrid Barajas Airport from April 24th (on a twice weekly basis), the carrier could well look to serve points such as Amsterdam, Munich and/or Vienna, which currently have no low-cost services to Poland, however they do not have secondary airport.
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