 |
| High airport fees deterring Wizz Air from Croatia |
Low cost airline Wizz Air has said its limited presence on the Croatian market comes as a result of high costs at the country’s airports. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News, Wizz Air’s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, said, “Croatia is very expensive. If Zagreb Airport becomes more reasonable we will certainly consider that airport as an opportunity for expanding our network but this is not yet the case”. Wizz Air suspended operations to Zagreb in 2011. “Nevertheless, we have continued discussions with a number of airports at the same time, so hopefully, at one point, we can go there [Croatia]. I think the market is good”, Mr. Varadi told EX-YU Aviation News as the low cost airline marked its eleventh birthday by rolling out a new and rejuvenated brand.
Wizz Air, which has quickly become the fastest growing low cost airline in the former Yugoslavia, with bases in Skopje, Belgrade and Tuzla (from June 22), currently serves the Croatian market with seven weekly flights to Split on a seasonal summer basis only. The airline will resume its daily service from London Luton to Split starting June 14 until September 12. Last year, flights were maintained four times per week. However, over the years, Wizz has also operated a number of services into Croatia including Dubrovnik and Zagreb. The airline initially launched operations to the Croatian capital in 2009 with flights from Dortmund. It also ran services from London to Dubrovnik, which were suspended in 2012. In 2011, Pula Airport said Wizz Air had expressed interest to fly to the city from two destinations. However, these never materialised.
Meanwhile, the no frills carrier celebrated its eleventh birthday yesterday with a special flight between Budapest and Warsaw, uncovering a new livery and uniforms, introducing seat allocation across its network and new fare types. During the year, the airline will also upgrade its website and introduce a mobile site, take delivery of new aircraft and introduce the Airbus A321 jet to its fleet. “Over the course of the last decade, Wizz Air has had significant success in revolutionising an entire industry, and we have exceeded our ambition to make reliable and affordable air travel available to everyone in Central and Eastern Europe as we extended operations all across Europe and beyond”, Mr. Varadi said. He added, “The launch of our refreshed brand is another one of our many measures to constantly improve passengers’ travel experience. We remain focused on developing our pan-European network”.
Now we know why they are ignoring Croatia. Wasn't someone claiming in the comments here how Wizz is in talks with Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteNo, Wizz wasn't mentioned. EasyJet return is being talked over and they might be back in 2016, but with BA and OU offering great deals on the route EasyJet won't be able to compete on london route with great success, perhaps they might return offering some other routes.
DeleteRight now most likely following carriers might come to Zagreb with in next 24 months. Some such as Air Canada Rouge and JAL are just hope, others are very or highly likely.
Allitalia - 10 weekly flights
SAS - full daily service
Czech Airlines (initially 3 weekly flights)
Iberia (year round service)
Finnair (twice weekly service)
EasyJet (initially 3 weekly flights)
Agean (initially 3 weekly flights)
Vueling (year round service, Barcelona, Seville)
El Al (year round service twice weekly)
Korean Air (year round service twice weekly and thrice weekly in summers)
JAL (year round service with twice weekly flights)
Air Canda R (year round service with two weekly flights)
Jeste a u BEG dolazi
DeleteQF 2 Pw
AY 7 pw
EK 10 pw
CX 3 pw
AA LAX 4pw ORD 4 pw.
INN-NS
Rouge nece sigurno posto nam fali barem 4 aviona za narednu godinu a uz to nije planirana ni jedna zemlja zapadnog Balkana (bivse Jugoslavije). Mi smo gledali neke opcije za Dubrovnik, medutim po statistikama koje smo dobili od vazdusnih vlasti Kanade ni ta linija ne bi bila profitabilna tako da sigurno necemo da letimo ni za Dubrovnik.
DeleteFinally allocated seating. Welcome to the 21st century!
ReplyDeleteCan someone tell me what is the passenger tax at Zagreb Airport. It might be the reason why Wizz Air isn't flying to ZAG.
ReplyDeleteTypical...How much millions of €€€ Croatia has lost due to this stupid mentality. Croatian wants huge sum of money with minimum amount of work and wants € today than long term stable profits of €€€. Yes, market is good, but Croatia, as always, wastes the opportunities.
ReplyDeleteReally?
DeleteConcessionaire of Zagreb airport is not Croats but French! Amount of work / profit is definitely their option!
Croatia is served by almost all LCC: Ryanair, easyJet, Germanwings, Transavia, Vueling, Norwegian, SmatrWings, Blue Panorama, Air Baltic, Volotea, FlyBe, Jet2, Monarch, flyDubai, even Wizzair. Only LCC that are not flying to Croatia are: Pegasus, NIKI and BlueAir
Some of them have more than 10 routes from Croatia like:
1. Germanwings 29 routes from 6 airports (PUY, RJK, ZAD, SPU, DBV, ZAG),
2.EasyJet 28 routes from 3 airports (PUY, SPU, DBV),
3. Norwegian 25 routes from 5 airports (PUY, RJK, SPU, DBV, ZAG)
4. Ryanair 19 routes from 4 Croatian airports (PUY, RJK, OSI, ZAD base),
5. Vueling 10 routes from 5 airport (PUY, ZAD, SPU, DBV, ZAG)
Even Zagreb has 7 routes with 4 different LCC.
For the summer months only, almost none iin the winter.... ZAG has considerably small LCC presence comparing the other European capitals. Hope the government let French work freely. Croatian coast need more traffic during the off seasons as well.
DeleteOf course those are seasonal routes, as all Croatian Adriatic airports are seasonal. Almost all other routes (flag carriers, charters) are also seasonal. Exempt domestic flights you have 3 all year Croatia Airlines routes, one British, and one Lufthansa routes from Adriatic airports. But still there are 6 all-year LCC routes from SPU and ZAG. Of course that is not enough. But that is not a point. Point is that Wizz cannot say that deal for LCC in Croatia is not good if almost all LCC (exempt 3 of them) fly to Croatia in more than 100 routes.
DeletePurger se pravi blesav po obicaju, samo u Zadru RA ima bazu ostali drugi nemaju. Wizz trazi uslove za bazu kao u Tuzli.
Deletea zašto bi Wizz dobio iste uvjete u Zgb ili npr. Dbv kao u Tuzli? nekako mislim da se ne smiju mješati babe i žabe. Ako im je po volji će doći kao i ostali a ako ne neće, vrlo jednostavno
DeleteNaravno slazemo se, samo ne treba Purger da mesa babe i zabe.
DeletePrvo ljubazno molim da u komunikaciji sa mnom izbjegavate "pravi se blesav" i slične kontekste. Ne kanim komunicirati gdje je način komunikacije na razini piljarica, niti želim komunicirati kamijonđijskim jezikom. Nedostatak odgoja nije izgovor za nekulturno ponašanje.
DeleteNaravno da ne mješam babe i žabe. Baza kod LCC ne znači ništa posebno. Niz LCC na nekim aerodromima ima daleko više letova iako nemaju bazu nego u nekim drugim gradovima gdje imaju bazu. Kod LCC to je tehničko pitanje a ne sustavno ili čak razvojno (ne kažem da ne može biti).
Tako primjerice easyJet ima deleko više letova iz DBV bez baze, nego Ryanair iz ZAD gdje ima baziran avion.
Više od 100 linija sa preko 400 tjednih polazaka skoro svih europskih LCC (nedostaju samo tri) govori da je Hrvatska vrlo prihvatljiva za LCC i argument Wizzaira ne stoji. Još manje stoji argument na koji je moja reakcija i bila o ljenosti Hrvata što se očituje kroz "demotivranje" Wizza, jer da je tako onda ni ovih 100+ prijevoznika ne bi bilo ovdje.
To je bila tema i poanta razgovora. A ne baziranje aviona i eventualni benefiti koji pritome dolaze (zapošljavanje ljudi, plačanje lokalnih taksi, lokalna logistika, sigurnije širenje linija...), naravno uz to dolaze i negativnosti.
Aman te nerazumna ne mogu vecina LCC da placaju punu cenu na oba kraja leta. Zato Wizz trazi bazu u CR i zato nije isto sa ostalim LCC. Pogledaj mape RA i Wizz-a. Pogledaj kako rade.
DeleteOcigledno je da Wizz ide principom ucjene pa gdje prodje prodje (Tuzla) a gdje ne prodje (Banja Luka) nikom nista. Hrvatski aerodromi imaju dovoljno prometa da mogu lako da se svrstaju u ovu drugu grupu
DeleteE pa dobar dio nabrojenih LCC ne leti iz svojih baza. Pa ipak godinama lete za hrvatske zračne luke. I na njima profitiraju. Zašto to ne može samo Wizz to ipak treba pitati njih.
DeleteNe mogu zato sto ni jedan Aerodrom u HR nije pristao na njihovu politiku kao i u BNX sto nisu.
DeleteINN-NS
Purger, nije pitanje baze vec self sustainable model kroz year-round operacije. Wizz Air core strategija nisu sezonski letovi.
DeleteTheir new livery looks great
ReplyDeleteYes, a nice update unlike Easy Jet!
DeleteI don't understand. Croatian airports give hefty subsidies to low cost airlines.
ReplyDeleteNo they don't.
DeleteWizz Air’s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, said, “Croatia is very expensive. If Zagreb Airport becomes more reasonable we will certainly consider that airport as an opportunity for expanding our network but this is not yet the case”
ReplyDeleteFascinating, Mr Varadi.
1) You left the ZAG market after the punters who pay to use your service (an inferior product and high fares) had enough! Other LCCs are still serving the airport, so it might not be that Croats are against a low-cost carrier...
2) There is more to Croatia than ZAG (especially the coastal airports), but you don't have so much of a presence there either!
Lift your game, and let's see what happens...
+1 if they are so expensive why didn't EasyJet, Ryanair and a dozen other low cost airline leave.
DeleteJAL left ZAG to LJU for their charter.
Deleteand what is your point on those 5 flights per year?
DeleteWizz Air has really improved over the years so I would like for them to give ZAG another try. I think they would have much more success than last time.
ReplyDeleteCroatia is too rich for low costers. Average salary of Croatians is high enough to let them use only legacy carriers. They should expand further in poor countries where theyre already strong, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Macedonia...
ReplyDeleteHahaha good one :) average salary of eur 700 so roughly half a monthly salary for a ticket? Easy there tiger! Still a way to go..
Delete"Kroejsha is too rich" this is definitely croatian inn ns. Probably also living somewhere in austria..
DeleteCroatia has the best sea, foods, hotels, so many world heritage sights. We don't need to go holiday in abroad. We have the holiday house and spend 1 month or more every year there. If you foreigners want to come to our beautiful country, of course expect to pay premier. Croatia is not for budget travellers.
Delete+1, haha another INN-SNS Cro version......
DeleteSure, Spain and Italy are for budget travellers, instead. They have bad hotels and food, unpleasant sea. All of this specially refers to Mallorca and Sardinia.Overall, ugly countries.
Delete"so many world heritage sights." Hahah, can you list some of them?
DeleteCroatia UNESCO World Heritage Sites
DeleteHistorical Complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian (1979)
Old City of Dubrovnik (1979, 1994)
Plitvice Lakes National Park (1979, 2000)
Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basilica in the Historic Centre of Poreč (1997)
Historic City of Trogir (1997)
The Cathedral of St James in Šibenik (2000)
Stari Grad Plain Hvar Island (2008)
Only Dubrovnik is comparable to Costiera amalfitana in Italy and 7600 km of italian coast is much better than 4800 km of Croatian. You should start traveling.
DeleteI don't think any foreigners are particularly interested in seeingQ
DeletetheHistorical Complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian (1979)
Old City of Dubrovnik (1979, 1994)
Plitvice Lakes National Park (1979, 2000)
Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basilica in the Historic Centre of Poreč (1997)
Historic City of Trogir (1997)
The Cathedral of St James in Šibenik (2000)
Stari Grad Plain Hvar Island (2008)
They are only interested in vacationing in a place cheaper than Italy, Greece, France or Spain.
That's what Croatia is for and you shouldn't feel the least embarrassed.
It's your niche and you should embrace it.
Anon 1.51 is a false flag psycho. Its the kroejsha inn ns but infinitely worse because inn is at the end an innocent kid while 'IT' is a dangerous venomous psychotic. My 2 cents :)
DeleteCroatia is not cheap as Greece or Spain.
DeleteWizz Air new site is a disaster. I've been previously delighted by the simplicity and exclusive use of Cyrillic (of their Serbian) version of the website. It didn't stop anyone from booking with them #AirSerbia. The new one has terrible contrasts and fares are hard to see. 'Change at any price' must be the stupid devise of our modern world.
ReplyDeleteWizz Air already flies to Split, why not opening new routes from Eindhoven or Rotterdam to Zadar?
ReplyDeleteNo Wizz airplain in Rotterdam. This is Transavia base.
DeleteSo what, Eindhoven is also base of Transavia Wizz and Rynair
DeleteToliko o tome kako samo Srbija stiti svoju nacionalnu aviokompaniju.
ReplyDeleteINN-NS
Please, translate.
DeleteSerbia does not protect only its national airline.
DeleteINN-NS
E al si mu ga preveo, svaka čast!
Deletehahahahahaha.... prevoda!!!!! hahahahahahaha dakle pišam od smeha.
DeleteI što ga opravi... ostadoše samo dugmići...
АХАХАХха мислим да не би било тако смешно да је било ко други то написао... али пошто је то био наш миљени ИНН...
DeleteNemam vremena da prevodim celu recenicu zauzet sam.
DeleteINN-NS
Vazno da nisi zauzet da se prawdasz.
DeletePa covece ne radi se o celoj recenici nego o smehu od prevoda. Prestrasno. Da i malo znas engleski svatio bi koju si glupost napisao
DeleteTuguje jer ne moze nista novo da kaze za A330...iaaaaah.
DeletePa znam i ja da je glupost kao sto sam jos odavno rekao ko me pita za prevod da cu gluposti napisati kao sto sam danas ucinio.
DeleteSto bi bilo lepo kad bi svi morali da se potpisemo bilokako moze i ananas.
INN-NS
YU ar rajt maj uajz frend from Inzbrook
DeleteAnanas
Actually, INN translation wasn't that bad. Only one word was misplaced and there was no misspelling.
DeleteSto je obrisan moj komentar kako ce srpski putnici moci za PEK da lete sa A359 preko VIE . ?
ReplyDeleteINN-NS
Not a single Serbian traveller with a gram of brain will fly to PEK via VIE at prices which are in effect at present.
DeletePa mozda bude niza cena u sezoni ali opet mislim da ce se tesko izboriti sa QR-EY.
DeleteINN-NS
But all state entity employees will. JU is their preferred carrier.
DeleteSeriously, how come Wizz is the only LCC that finds Croatian airports too expensive? How come so many other LCCs fly there regardless of airport fees?
ReplyDeleteOK, some may say others only fly in high season. Well, so could do Wizz. What prevents them from opening a couple of seasonal routes, the same way as so many LCCs do?
It seems to me the Wizz board is convinced they can struck a kind of bargain they got in SKP or TZL anywhere in the Balkans - they just need to bash the local authorities a bit and things will go their way (i.e. airport operators will be begging them to come at any cost - preferably zero cost).
Well, if their BEG experience hasn't taught them that their business model from SKP/TZL may not necessarily be applicable anywhere, then ZAG can only be even bigger disappointment for them.
BEG is exactly the cheap-ass market they find elsewhere in the Balkans. Too bad corruption prevents them from expanding. ZAG is a bit different.
DeleteIn yesterdays edition of EXYU Aviation news Wizz was quoted saying that Belgrade is one of the most expensive airports in Europe. Yet they operate from it! Today Wizz says Zagreb is too expensive and needs to be more reasonable?!?! Looks like Wizz needs to be more reasonable. Airports like SJJ and ZAG are looking at Wizz profits and probably telling Wizz: "Who are you kidding? You can even make profit flying with our airport fees, pay up or go home!"
ReplyDeleteWizz has so many orders for new planes, they have no other choice but to expand at more expensive airports. Not too many airports left in Europe willing to charge 3EUR/pax fee. Wizz talk about ZAG is a proof they are running out of cheap airports.
Belgrade is actually one of the few reasonably priced airports in this region, and lower than comparable airports in West Europe, so I am not sure what Wizz is trying to say...
DeleteIf Wizz is not happy with the already low fees at BEG, they are welcome to expand at any of the other international airports in Serbia.
All these years they not have profits. No IPO.
ReplyDeleteHaha, you live in the dark side of the Moon, right?
DeleteWizz is still private company.
DeleteLet's test your reading skills yet again.
Deletehttp://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2015-02-25/wizz-air-goes-public-boost-low-cost-growth-plan
Wizz passengers will be able to fill the wish list form in the next couple of weeks. Their wishes will be kept until 2024 when box will be open and revealed if their wishes came true.
ReplyDeleteMost airlines would poll passengers to see their wishes right away so they can implement some of them, not wait 9 years to read them!
My wish for Wizz in 2024: to have Serbia - Australia flight. Let's see if it becomes true.
Time to make amends with Delta. Big thumbs up for this seriously funny safety video from Delta, they are now funnier than Air New Zealand when it comes to viral safety videos. Enjoy:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/Vttuonfu2BM
It's a bit retarted...
DeleteThat's intentional. Most internet memes are obnoxious, like annoying orange, but people find it funny.
DeleteSome airlines have hobbits and surfers, others dance like Virgin America. We'll have to wait to see what will be Air Serbia funny safety video. How about Novak Djokovic placing Roland Garros trophy in the overhead bin because it won't fit under the seat?
http://airwaysnews.com/blog/2015/05/20/etihad-reshaping-alitalia-and-air-serbia/
ReplyDeleteZanimljiv tekst :)
INN-NS