Wizz Air to open base at Larnaca, Cyprus in July

Budapest-based Wizz Air will establish its 28th base at Larnaca (LCA) in Cyprus in July, basing two Airbus A320’s at the airport.

From the new LCA base, the Hungarian LCC will operate 10 new routes starting in July: Athens (ATH) and Thessaloniki (SKG), Greece; Baden (FKB), Dortmund (DTM) and Memmingen (FMM), Germany; Billund (BLL) and Copenhagen (CPH), Denmark; Suceava (SCV), Romania; Turku (TKU), Finland; and Wroclaw (WRO), Poland.

The ATH and SKG routes will be operate daily, while the eight other routes will operate two or three times weekly.

“Today’s announcement [about LCA] comes as the new era of sanitized travel begins at Wizz Air,” the airline said in a statement. “The airline recently announced a range of enhanced hygiene measures, to ensure the health and safety of its customers and crew [in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic]. As part of these new protocols, throughout the flight, both cabin crew and passengers are required to wear facemasks, with cabin crew also required to wear gloves.

"Wizz Air’s aircraft are regularly put through an industry-leading fogging process with an antiviral solution and, following Wizz’s stringent daily cleaning schedule, all of the airline’s aircraft are further disinfected overnight with the same antiviral solution.”

The airline continued: "Sanitizing wipes are handed to each passenger upon entering the aircraft, onboard magazines have been removed from the aircraft, and any onboard purchases are encouraged to be made by contactless payment. Passengers are requested to follow physical distancing measures introduced by the local health authorities and are encouraged to make all purchases prior to the flight online (e.g. checked in luggage, WIZZ Priority, fast security track), to minimize any possible physical contact at the airport.”

Wizz Air said it will start “recruiting young and ambitious candidates” for pilot and cabin crew positions at the new base.

Speaking at a press conference in Larnaca, Wizz CEO József Váradi said: “After ten years of successful operations to Larnaca Airport, I am delighted to announce our newest base here, as we see the potential and the demand for low cost travel in Cyprus, which is one of the most popular and rapidly developing tourist destinations.”

Photo credit: Hermes Airports