Wizz Air brings further expansion to its Georgian base
Wizz Air, one of Europe’s fastest growing budget airlines and now the leading carrier in Georgia, has announced the start of two new European routes from Kutaisi – to Bologna and Cologne. The central and eastern European low-cost carrier (LCC) has also revealed the earlier start of the previously announced Kutaisi-Nice route, whilst also increasing the frequency of its Kutaisi-Milan services.
The ambitious Hungarian airline started its operations from Kutaisi International Airport (KUT) in 2012 and after seven years of operations, and only two months after announcing the location of its fourth and fifth aircraft and 12 new routes from its Kutaisi base, the airline is bringing further expansion at its Georgian headquarters by adding two new services starting in November 2019 and July 2020.
Wizz Air is to start its previously announced new service to Nice in mid-December 2019 and will increase the frequency of the Kutaisi-Milan route to four services per week as of November.
Together with the two new destinations, the LCC now offers 41 routes to 19 countries from Kutaisi, which is the third most populous city in the Caucasus republic and the second in importance, after the capital city of Tbilisi. The two new routes will bring an additional 94,000-seat capacity to the airline’s Georgian network, totalling more than 1.5 million seats for sale in 2020.
Wizz’s fast-growing presence in Georgia will further stimulate the local economy including a tourism industry badly affected by the suspension earlier this summer of all direct air links between Georgia and Russia, its current primary market.
Just a day ago, Wizz’s arch-rival Ryanair announced its first ever flights to Georgia, with a new route from Milan’s Bergamo airport to Tbilisi and two from Bologna and Marseille to Kutaisi, which start in November. The Irish LCC will also connect Georgia’s capital to Cologne in April as part of Ryanair’s Summer 2020 schedule and expects to deliver 170,000 customers annually to/from these Georgian airports.
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