Wizz Air opens a new base in Georgia

Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air has opened its new base in the airport of Kutaisi in Georgia.

The airline has based one of its new Airbus A320 aircraft at Kutaisi Airport (KUT), and now offers 11 routes to eight countries from Georgia’s second largest city. Seven of these are the carrier’s new destinations to Berlin, Dortmund and Munich Memmingen (Germany), Larnaca (Cyprus), Milan (Italy), Sofia (Bulgaria) and Thessaloniki (Greece) from Kutaisi. Other destinations – Budapest (Hungary), Vilnius (Lithuania), Warsaw and Katowice (Poland) – were in Wizz Air’s route network before.

Wizz Air launched flights from Kutaisi in 2012, through its now-defunct subsidiary, Wizz Air Ukraine. Since then the low-cost carrier has served more than 600,000 passengers, including 125,000 people in 2015.

Eastern Europes’ biggest LCC reports that opening of its new base required about $98 million of investment.Wizz Air first announced its plans to open the base in Kutaisi in February last year. By that time the company reported it had signed an agreement with the airport’s managing company “The Union of Airports of Georgia”.

Kutaisi is the second largest airport in Georgia and the only low-cost carrier oriented hub in the region. Wizz Air counts on its new base to foster passenger traffic growth and expand its geography. However, Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, one of the company’s main competitors, is also eyeing a base in Kutaisi.