Wizz Air cancels majority of Belgrade expansion

Wizz Air has cancelled the majority of its planned expansion from its Belgrade base for next summer season and has suspended plans to base a third aircraft in the city. Out of the nine new routes that were to launch, only two will go ahead – Sandefjord and Hamburg. As a result, the airline has cancelled its planned flights to Barcelona, Lisbon, Milan, Charleroi, Cologne, Friedrichshafen and Turku. Furthermore, the carrier has shelved the resumption of its flights from Salzburg, which operated for a short period last summer before they were suspended due to travel restrictions. Wizz Air initially planned to expand its Belgrade base during the 2020 summer season with ten new routes, an additional aircraft and the upgrade of its existing two Airbus A320 jets to the A321s. 

The low cost airline announced its Belgrade expansion in mid-June of last year as countries around Europe began relaxing strict coronavirus lockdown measures. However, its plans were derailed as Serbia was removed from the list of countries deemed epidemiologically safe by most of the European Union, prohibiting the majority of its nationals from entering the block. The entry ban is still in place. At the time, Wizz Air’s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, said, “Belgrade has done well for us and we try to do better for Belgrade as a result and bring new routes and more capacity to the market. Belgrade has been operational for us through the crisis and consumer uptake has been very strong. Even in very difficult circumstances, consumers have been very loyal to Wizz Air and they appreciate our service and decided to fly with us in these difficult times”. 

Wizz Air faces no direct competition on the two routes it intends to launch. The carrier last maintained flights between Sandefjord and Belgrade in 2012. They will now run twice per week from March 28. Sandefjord is 170 kilometres south of the Norwegian capital's main airport in Gardermoen which both Air Serbia and Norwegian Air Shuttle link to Belgrade. In 2019, Belgrade - Oslo had around 50.000 two-way point-to-point passengers, handled by Norwegian Air Shuttle, as well as about 7.000 flying indirectly. On the other hand, services to Hamburg will operate three times per week starting March 29. Air Serbia previously served the city seasonally, terminating the flights two years ago following five months of low-frequency operations. In total, some 19.000 travellers flew between the two cities in 2019. Of those, 16.000 transferred through other points in Europe, while the Serbian carrier, which put 5.000 seats on sale, handled the remaining 3.000 passengers.