Air fares will soar if low-cost carriers are forced to move to Otopeni, warns Wizz Air

The authorities’ decision to transfer low-cost flights from their present hub at Aurel Vlaicu International Airport (Baneasa) to Henri Coanda International Airport (Otopeni) will force budget carriers to increase air fares, warned Jozsef Varadi, CEO of Hungarian company Wizz Air. The increase will be generated by 40 percent higher airport taxes at Otopeni than at Baneasa. The switch is expected to take place sometime during 2012-2013, the Ministry of Transport has previously announced.

“We will remain at Baneasa for as long as we can. However, we are committed enough to the Bucharest market that if, let’s say, the Baneasa airport is shut down for various reasons, we will not leave the capital and we will relocate to Otopeni,” said Varadi. He added that in this situation his company would have no alternative but to revise its capacity plan and increase ticket prices.

The CEO went on to say that the measure will affect the entire airline industry and force some players to leave Bucharest and go elsewhere. Varadi described the airport taxes at Otopeni as excessive. “Otopeni is more expensive than Warsaw or Budapest, which is ridiculous as the market does not justify this difference,” he commented.Wizz Air’s passenger traffic in Bucharest is estimated to have increased by 40 percent this year from 2010, totaling 1.48 million passengers.

Earlier this year, Wizz Air and the management of the airport in Timisoara – one of the airline’s local bases – became the subject of an investigation by the European Commission (EC) under the suspicion that certain airport tax rebates and discounts given by the authorities constituted illegal state aid for the Hungarian carrier. The scheme is suspected to have given Wizz Air an unfair economic advantage over its competitors. Varadi denied the allegations and said that the EC’s final decision is likely to take a year or more.

Wizz Air operates from four airports in Romania: in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Tirgu Mures and Timisoara. The low-cost carrier announced last week that it had bought a new aircraft, bringing its local fleet to six Airbus A320 airplanes, and was launching a new route to Verona in Italy.

For 2011, Wizz Air has reported 2.76 million passengers, about 28 percent more than the previous year, and it has plans to boost the number by another 10 percent in 2012. At European level, the carrier transported approximately 11 million passengers from 15 operating bases in eight Central and East European countries.

Simona Bazavan