Central and Eastern European low-cost carrier Wizz Air is to deploy two additional Airbus A320s in Romania from the final quarter of 2014 as it expands its activities at its bases at Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara. The carrier will station a fourth aircraft and launch three new services from Cluj-Napoca from December 20, 2014 and double its fleet at Timisoara bringing a second Airbus A320 and four new services to the base from November 1, 2014

Wizz Air made its debut in the Romanian market in July 2006 when it introduced flights to Tirgu Mures from Budapest and now offers flights from seven Romanian destinations comprising, Bucharest Baneasa, Bucharest Henri Coanda, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Sibiu, Tirgu Mures and Timisoara covering 87 routes and offering 220,000 seats from the country this month.

”We are thrilled to announce the deployment of a fourth Airbus A320 aircraft in Cluj-Napoca and the doubling of our Timisoara fleet from one to two based Airbus A320 aircraft,” said John Stephenson, executive vice president, Wizz Air.

The new routes will strengthen the carrier’s already dominant position at Cluj-Napoca where it holds a 67.1 per cent share of available capacity based upon July 2014 flight schedules. Only recently the airline announced a new service from Cluj-Napoca to Nuremberg in Germany from October 1, 2014 and will now also add links to Cologne in Germany, Geneva in Switzerland and Malmo in Sweden from December 20, 2014.

It will also boost the frequency of some of its most popular routes from the Romanian city with the introduction of a fifth weekly frequency to Milan Bergamo and Paris Beauvais, a fourth weekly rotation to Bologna and Dortmund and a third departure to Rome Ciampino.

At Timisoara the second A320 will enable new twice weekly flights to begin to Frankfurt Hahn and Munich Memmingen in Germany, Brussels Charleroi in belgium and Turin in Italy, as well as increased frequencies to Milan Bergamo (frrom four to five weekly) and Rome Ciampino (from three to four weekly).

Speaking to The HUB Daily on the sidelines of the Routes Silk Road forum in Tbilisi, Georgia, Davit Mamulaishvili, head of ground operations and customer services, Wizz Air said: ”We stay committed to Romania by creating more jobs and stimulating tourism in the regions we operate in. We hope that our new routes will be welcomed by consumers and benefit the local economies as we bring more low fares to Romania.”

In our analysis, below, we look in greater detail at Wizz Air’s rise in the Romanian international market since its debut in 2006. Last year it increased its marketshare by seat capacity from 50.7 per cent to 55.9 per cent, while this is expected to grow to 66.0 per cent this year.