Wizz Air plans flights from Sofia to Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Bologna

Wizz Air, of Hungary, which operates several flights from Bulgaria, is to start 4 new routes from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, to 4 destinations in Western Europe – Paris (France), Frankfurt (Germany), Madrid (Spain) and Forlì, near Bologna (Italy) – from May 22, 2010.

Wizz Air, the low-cost airline headquartered in Vecsés, Hungary, will operate the flights to these 4 cities 3 times a week.

The price for a one-way ticket on each of the 4 routes starts at 33.99 leva (about 17 euros). This price includes airport taxes, but excludes extra charges for baggage and insurance.

On 3 of the 4 new routes – Madrid, Paris and Frankfurt – Wizz Air will have to compete with Easy Jet (on the Madrid route), Air France (on the Paris route), and  Lufthansa (on the Frankfurt route) as well as with Bulgaria Air which flies to all these 3 destinations.

Right now, Wizz Air has not scheduled the flights from Sofia to Forlì, near Bologna.

The airline said in a statement that it plans to raise the frequency of its existing flights from Sofia to Eindhoven (the Netherlands) and Valencia (Spain). Thus, the service to Eindhoven will go up to 3 times a week, and to Valencia to 4 times a week.

In addition, Wizz Air is considering starting services to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The planned flight to Bratislava, according to Wizz Air, will be an alternative to passengers to Vienna who have been affected by SkyEurope, the low-cost carrier based in Bratislava, suspending operations in early September 2009 after going bankrupt.

John Stephenson, executive vice-president of Wizz Air, said in the statement that, for the time being, the carrier cannot afford to fly to Vienna since the airport taxes there are “too high and our colleagues from Vienna-based Flyniki will take over that flight.”

Apart from the Sofia-Eindhoven and Sofia-Valencia services, Wizz Air at present flies from Sofia to Brussels (Belgium), Dortmund (Germany), Barcelona (Spain), London (the United Kingdom) as well as Rome, Milan, Venice and Varna (Italy).

Wizz Air said that, in order to cope with the enhanced traffic to and from Bulgaria, the airline plans to base a third aircraft in Bulgaria.

The airline currently operates 26 aircraft, and the number is expected to increase to 132 planes by 2017.

Wizz Air at present accounts for 11% of the Bulgaria’s civil aviation market, second only to Bulgaria Air, the national airline of Bulgaria.

The airline, which flew around 650,000 passengers from Sofia in 2008, witnessed a 30% overall growth in 2008, the statement said.