WizzAir to reinstate regular flights to-from Budapest
By Nigar Orujova
Low-cost airline WizzAir will resume regular round-trip flights to Budapest starting March 27, 2016.
Azerbaijan’s State Civil Aviation Administration and the Hungarian low-cost airline WizzAir agreed to resume regular flights on Budapest-Baku-Budapest route. WizzAir and Ground Handling Company signed an agreement on operating flights October 28.
From the Azerbaijani side, the agreement was signed by the head of the Ground Handling Company, Ilgar Alakbarov, and from WizzAir, the company’s CEO Jozsef Varadi.
The agreement confirms that WizzAir, the largest low-fare airline in Central and Eastern Europe, will carry out regular flights on this route throughout the entire year.
“Tickets are already on sale,” said the CEO of WizzAir. “The cost of one-way tickets starts from 39.99 euros.”
The flights will be on Airbus planes at night from Wednesday to Thursday, and from Sunday to Monday, he added.
The head of Ground Handling Company said that the contract has been signed for a period until April 2019.
Direct flights between Baku and Budapest began in June 2013 in accordance with a memorandum of cooperation signed by the civil aviation administrations of the two countries. WizzAir carried out flights in summer 2013 and 2014.
The company indefinitely postponed flights from Baku to Europe this March and compensated existing ticketholders for 20 percent of the full airfare.
Before the incident, round-trip airfare from Baku to Budapest cost 160 euros, which made the company popular among Azerbaijanis and European tourists visiting Baku.
Due to the large flow of tourists using this route to Europe, Hungary even planned to open a visa center in Baku for rendering technical services and issuing Schengen visas for the citizens of Azerbaijan.
In late August, it was also reported that some Turkish low-cost airlines would begin flights to Azerbaijan. However, the decision changed in October. Further talks on low-cost flights between the two countries may resume in future.
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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar
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