Low-Cost Airliner Wizz Air Carried 720,000 Passengers In 1H ’09, Up 86% On Yr

"The increase in the number of clients in the first six months of the year was mainly due to expanding the company’s network, increasing the number of flights and setting up new operations bases. Furthermore, people’s choice of low-cost airliners over large traditional airliners, in the fallout of the economic crisis, was also a significant factor," Natasa Kazmer, corporate communications & public affairs director with Wizz Air, told MEDIAFAX Thursday.

The airliner’s first-half results topped its initial estimations, which indicated a number of 690,000 clients, while its average aircraft occupancy rate reached 85%.

Wizz Air set up its third operations base this year in Timisoara, western Romania, and launched new flights to Barcelona, Milan, Valencia, Venice and Paris. Furthermore, the company assigned two new Airbus 320 aircrafts to its operations bases in capital city Bucharest and Timisoara, and another aircraft to its base in Cluj-Napoca, northwestern Romania, at the middle of June this year.

In addition, the company doubled its transport capacity and increased the number of employees.

Wizz Air currently operates in Romania over 100 flights per week towards 13 destinations and it carried 1.9 million passengers in its first three years of activity on the Romanian market, posting an average aircraft occupancy rate of 85% annually.

The company owns 23 aircrafts and its fleet is to extend and include over 130 aircrafts until 2014, following contracts with Airbus.

Low-cost airliners Blue Air, Germanwings, easyJet, SkyEurope, Myair and Ryanair also operate the Romanian market.