Wizz Air hopes to establish a base in Pristina and become the city’s largest airline, the company’s President, Robert Carey, said following talks with government officials. “We will handle over 600.000 Kosovo passengers next year, which will make us the largest airline here. We will maintain services to the likes of Switzerland, Germany and Austria. It is very important for us that travellers from Kosovo, but also those from nearby markets, fly with Wizz Air when they need to”, Mr Carey said. He added, “Part of our job is to add as many new destinations as possible. We hope to build a base here in the future”.
Wizz Air’s President met with Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance, Minister for Economy, Minister for Infrastructure, the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, as well as Pristina Airport’s Chief Operating Officer. "We discussed the economic impact and benefits that we will bring as an airline, but also ways in which we can grow in the Kosovo market in the future. We came here to meet with those directly responsible for the aviation industry in Kosovo and to show the commitment and excitement we have for this market", Mr Carey noted.
Wizz Air entered the Kosovo market in April 2017 and is today the third busiest carrier at Pristina Airport behind only easyJet and Eurowings. It commenced operations to the city from Budapest and London Luton. This was followed by the addition of flights from Memmingen, Basel and Dortmund during the fourth quarter of 2018, after which the airline positioned itself among the top ten busiest in Pristina. By the end of the following year, it was in the top five. In 2019, the carrier added flights to Vienna and in 2020 services to Milan and Baden Baden were introduced. During 2021, it commenced services to Rome.
Wizz Air's Pristina performance
Another chance for Ljubljana gone. Congrats to Pristina!
ReplyDeletelol why? do u even know where ljubljana and pristina are?
DeleteI'm pretty sure that they won't open 2 separate bases in balkans in a week...
DeleteIts more likely wizz will leave LJU than open base there.
DeleteIf they plan to more than double passenger numbers, than I assume many new routes will be launched.
ReplyDelete"We came here to meet with those directly responsible for the aviation industry in Kosovo and to show the commitment and excitement we have for this market"
ReplyDeleteIn other words, they came to get subsidies.
The airport is expensive and under the concession agreement, the government sets the airline fees and prices.
DeleteWell done PRN.
ReplyDeletePassenger numbers will sky rocket.
ReplyDeleteThey will certainly. I see them staying ahead of ZAG. Maybe even contesting number 1 spot.
DeleteThere clearly is a chance of PRN becoming the busiest airport in ex-Yu. There is so much traffic beyween XK and Switzerland, Germany and Austria that even foreign airlines very often operate them. W6 now wants a chunk of this cake as well.
ReplyDeleteIf the emigration rate continues at this pace, I agree it will have a good chance at being number one.
DeleteWhere does this leave Skopje?
ReplyDeleteCannibalized
DeleteI don't think Wizz Air will canabilize any of its bases. It will continue to grow from Skopje too.
DeleteYes you are right! Skopje is a very important maker for Wizz Air and there is no chance they risk Skopje over new base in Pristina. When easyJet could open SKP - GVA while flying daily from GVA to PRN, why not Wizz to do the same?
DeletePlus, Eurowings already flies from Pristina to Berlin, Hannover, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne, Dusseldorf while Wizz flies from Skopje to 10 cities in Germany and as you can see there is demand for SKP base.
DeleteDo you really think Wizz is so dumb to hurt their routes from SKP?
DeleteThis could spur quite a bit of competition between easyjet, Eurowings and Wizz in Pristina.
ReplyDeleteBold move. But let's see how they get to deal with local tour operator mafia...
ReplyDeleteHope it will mean the end of the reiseburo mafiosa.
DeleteWow they handle a lot of passengers from PRN, considering they don't have so many flights.
ReplyDeleteEurowings is not gonna like this...
ReplyDeleteEW has had a very odd approach at PRN. They based plane, then they took away plane, they open and close routes as they please, they fly some routes just once per week, they are working with the family tour operators...
DeleteEspecially the last one is very odd.. but without them there would be no based aircraft from EW
DeleteWhich routes could we see them launch?
ReplyDeleteHopefully Copenhagen-Pristina will be launched next.
DeletePristina needs Wizz to Eindhoven. Plenty of immigrant there!
Deletethey should try new flight from Gulf Countries to Prishtina like AbuDhabi and Saudi Arabia Damam, Jeddah or even Riyadh as tourist number in Kosovo is rising from those countries
DeleteFollowing the disaster Wizz Air has had with many new routes in Western Europe, and especially in Vienna, they are obviously looking at employing their aircraft elsewhere and sticking to what they know - being a gasto airline.
ReplyDeleteThey should stick to what made them such a sucsefull airline.
DeleteI fly Wizz to Prishtina on monthly basis. Flights from Dortmund and Vienna are always packed to the fullest. Im not surprised they will capitalize on this.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if setting a base there would also mean hiring local staff? I find it ridiculous when Stewardess talk broken english to older folks. In all other countries Wizz operates, they speak their local language, except for Kosovo.
Yes that would mean they will hire local staff.
DeleteOf course they only speak on english on the flights to Pristina as they dont have base there. When they operate to from one to another destinations and none of them is a base then the flight is operated in"W" i.e. Sofia - Dortmund - Pristina - Dortmund - Sofia. So of course they will speak only english on the flight to and from Pristina. And it is not only Pristina, same is for Banja Luka, Ljubljana, Ohrid, Podgorica, Nis. Plovdiv, Suceava, Kaunas, Palanga....
DeleteIt depends, for example FKB and BSL were operated by TIA based aircraft this winter.
DeleteNo wizz stuff talks broken english. No airline stuff talks broken english cause of security reason. Nice way of trolling.
DeleteIf EU ever liberalizes visa regime for Kosovo citizens demand will be huge.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThis shows that there is enough demand for Wizz from both SKP and PRN.
ReplyDeleteExcellent news. Plus a great start to the year at PRN.
ReplyDeleteGreat news
ReplyDeleteDoes Wizz get subsidies to fly from Pristina like in Skopje?
ReplyDeleteNo
DeletePRN offers incentives to all airlines when they launch new flights, as is common at many airports around the world.
DeleteOk, thank you
DeleteHope for some flights in Greece especially Athens , big diaspora there.
ReplyDeleteKosovo diaspora in Greece?
DeleteThere is no Kosovar diaspora in Athens.
DeleteA seasonal connection to Thessaloniki could work given people travel for weekend and there is a number of students and some business ties to Thess Port.
But since MK completed or is to complete the motorway to the Greek border, Thess-Prn its just a 3-4 hour drive after all.
Urime, Prishtinë! Excellent news indeed. Whilst others are shrinking, you are growing. Exciting times ahead.
ReplyDeleteHow exciting
ReplyDeleteI guess their SKP flights are performing really well if they are adding flights to PRN.
ReplyDeleteThis will hurt Skopje and Eurowings a lot. My family flew more from Skopje than Pristina Airport... before two days they flew with W6 from Skopje to Hamburg for visit. The ticket difference with EW from Pristina for four people was over 600 euro.
ReplyDelete