Hungary’s Wizz Air to open Palermo base in 2Q21

Wizz Air (W6, Budapest) has announced the opening on June 1 of a new base in Palermo, Sicily, where it will base two A321s to serve seven new destinations, including 3x weekly flights to London Luton and 2x weekly services to Basel/Mulhouse/Freiburg, CH. Five new Italian domestic destinations to be served from Palermo will include: Bologna (daily), Verona (3x weekly), Pisa (daily), Turin (4x weekly), and Venice Treviso (5x weekly), the low-cost carrier disclosed during an online news conference. Wizz Air’s existing service from Palermo to Milan Malpensa will see improved scheduling for better connections, leaving early in the morning and returning late in the evening. The carrier also announced four other domestic Italian services from Bologna, Brindisi, Pisa, Milan Malpensa, and Catania from June 2021. The new routes will add one million more seats from Italy in 2021, the carrier said in a statement. The services would also support the local tourism sector and create more than 750 jobs in associated industries. Palermo will be Wizz Air’s 42nd base and its fourth in Italy, the others being: Malpensa, served with five A321s; Catania where it stations two A321s; and Bari with one A321. Wizz Air’s first started flying to Italy in 2004 when the first flight departed from Bergamo to Katowice in Poland. The airline has carried 41 million passengers to and from the country in the past 17 years. Speaking at the online press conference, Chief Commercial Officer today, George Michalopoulos, said Wizz Air’s was committed to developing its presence in Italy. Palermo Mayor, Leoluca Orlando expressed the hope the new base would contribute to the development of the whole of western Sicily.