News: Wizzair planning further flights from Coventry
Flights > News > # 1027 (20/10/2006)
Budget airline Wizzair plan to add additional flights from Coventry Airport , if the recently announced link between Coventry and Katowice proves to be successful.
Speaking to Flightmapping.com, Wizzair's chief commercial officer, John Stephenson, said the obvious next step forward would be to provide links with the airline's other two bases in Poland - the first in the capital Warsaw and the other in the historic northern port of Gdansk.
The main reason for Wizzair choosing Katowice for their first flights from Coventry was due to the city's emergence as the airline's most important base, as well as its access to the substantial population centres of southern Poland. Stephenson also commented on how there were many more opportunities to open up flights from Katowice because disposable incomes in southern Poland are generally higher than in the rest of the country, and because of the city's proximity to Krakow, which is one of Europe's fastest growing short-break destinations.
Wizzair already operates cheap flights to Katowice from Cork in Ireland and several different UK airports. Flights from Bournemouth to Katowice were also announced at the same time as the Coventry route.
A number of budget airlines have expressed concerns over capacity constraints at Warsaw's Frederic Chopin international airport, whose budget terminal is already fully occupied. Wizzair also have major bases in the Hungarian capital Budapest, and at Aurel Vlaicu airport in the Romanian capital Bucharest. The airline plans to start cheap flights to Bucharest from the UK in early 2007, when Romania joins the EU. Stephenson said cheap flights from Budapest to Coventry were unlikely in the near future due to high charges at the city’s Otopeni airport.
Although many commentators in the industry would agree that Coventry's low-cost facilities and Wizzair's pure no-frills strategy are a natural match, concerns have been raised about the ability of Coventry's relatively short runway to handle the Airbus A320 aircraft which are operated by Wizz.
Stephenson said: “When we were investigating the possibility of starting flights from Coventry, we approached Airbus to make sure that there would be no technical constraints. It was an important criteria that Coventry would be able to handle flights to all of the cities where we currently have bases, and not just to Poland.
“We wanted to make sure that Coventry could handle any long-term expansion plans that we might have. Although there might be some small weight restrictions during certain weather conditions, these would be unlikely to make us have to make any more than ten seats on each flight unavailable. As well as Bulgarian holiday destinations, it should be technically possible for us to operate flights from Coventry to the Ukraine, or even Moscow, but the prospect of this happening is a long way off," he added.
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