Alicante-Elche Airport is scheduled to be one of the new destinations covered by expanded Wizz Air services from Doncaster Sheffield Airport.
This follows the airline group’s announcement that Doncaster will become its second base for Wizz Air UK, together with London Luton. The airline plans to allocate one Airbus A320 aircraft to the Yorkshire airport, and add seven new routes – including Alicante-Elche from 22 October – to its existing Doncaster Sheffield network of 10 routes.
Wizz Air launched its first flight from Doncaster Sheffield Airport 14 years ago, and since then the company – which describes itself as “Europe’s greenest airline” (based on annual carbon-dioxide emissions) – has grown to be the airport’s largest carrier. Currently, the airline carries one million passengers every year on ultra-low central and eastern European routes.
Now, with the creation of the new base at Doncaster Sheffield Airport, Wizz Air plans to launch new connections to Alicante and Málaga in Spain, Larnaca in Cyprus, Faro in Portugal, Lublin in Poland, Kosice in Slovakia and Suceava in Romania.
This will increase the annual capacity of Doncaster Sheffield Airport by 150,000 seats, according to Wizz Air, “providing local passengers with even more affordable and exciting travel opportunities”.
The addition of the new Airbus A320 at Doncaster means Wizz Air now has 11 aircraft permanently based in the UK and, with the new routes, will have nearly 1.8 million seats on sale on its 107 routes from the UK for the remainder of 2020.
Recently, Wizz Air also announced the creation of new bases in Bacău, Dortmund, Lviv, Larnaca, Milan-Malpensa, Tirana and Saint Petersburg, and the launch of over 200 new routes across the network since April 2020.
The airline’s growth coincides with a “new era of sanitised travel, with Wizz Air having led the industry restart by saying ‘yes to flying’ and implementing stringent health and hygiene measures to protect passengers and crew.
“While the HEPA filters of all Wizz Air aircraft already filter out 99.7 per cent of viruses and bacteria from the air, Wizz Air’s new protocols support physical distancing guidelines, ensure an ultra-clean environment on board and reduce any non-essential human interaction and physical contact, so that Wizz passengers can feel confident that they are travelling to their destination safely.”
Announcing the expansion plans, Wizz Air UK managing director Owain Jones said, “The creation of our second base in the UK is a major milestone for Wizz Air UK, and testament to both our long-term commitment to serving the UK market and the strength of the Wizz Air business model, as we continue to expand our footprint during this challenging time for the industry.
“We’re delighted to be introducing new low-fare connections to Doncaster Sheffield, to provide customers with opportunities to explore new cultures and cities, or return to their favourite holiday spots. The Wizz team looks forward to welcoming customers old and new on-board our young and green fleet of Airbus aircraft very soon.”
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