Wizz Air conquers Middle East: here is their new joint venture

We wrote multiple times that the Hungarian low-cost carrier, Wizz Air, would like to expand in the Middle East and Central Asia instead of West Europe. That is probably because in Europe, they have Ryanair and EasyJet as strong competitors, while in the East, the Orbán government can help them. Of course, the carrier still has strong positions in Eastern Europe.

According to Budflyer, a Hungarian Facebook page promoting air travel and Budapest Airport, Wizz Air would like to create a Saudi-Hungarian joint venture soon. They refer to an article published by Flight Global on 29 September.

Flight Global reminded that Wizz Air established a couple of new routes to the Middle Eastern great power in 2022, after the end of the COVID pandemic and the following closures. Wizz Air also signed a contract with the Saudi government to investigate the possibility of launching new services in the framework of the country’s ambitious Vision 2030 programme.

Read also:

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• Attention! Cheap travel to Hungary may be over

Expansion in the Middle East important aim

”We are now a year into our Saudi programme, that’s the largest destination announcement we have ever done, 23 destinations. Overall, [we are] very happy with that and the progression we see with these markets, just like we have seen in every other market”, Wizz president Robert Carey said at the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon.

Wizz Air currently connects European cities with Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh. Furthermore, they carry passengers from Abu Dhabi to Dammam and Madinah.

That will not be the first joint venture of Wizz in the Middle East. The first one was created in 2021 in Abu Dhabi to operate United Arab Emirates flights.

According to Carey, they already have a partner in Saudi Arabia and await the decision of the local regulator.

”Abu Dhabi is growing up to about 12-13 aircraft this winter,” Carey said. ”We have expanded our network and have a diverse set of markets from short-haul, medium-haul, flying east, flying west, north – not too much south, though we do go to the Maldives”, he added. From next month, the low-cost airline will connect Abu Dhabi with Erbil in Iraq. Carey seemed determined to expand their traffic and network in the Middle East and Central Asia. “We are not bringing in connecting traffic, we are bringing in point-to-point traffic”, he highlighted.

As we wrote HERE, Wizz Air had to reduce capacities due to the engine problems of its Airbus A320neo family aircraft.

Wizz Air is 20 years old this year. Today, there are four companies under that name: Wizz Air Hungary (W6/WZZ), Wizz Air UK (W9/WUK), Wizz Air Abu Dhabi (5W/WAZ), and Wizz Air Malta (W4/WMT), FlightRadar wrote.