Hungary Wizz Air plans to triple fleet, headcount within 10 yrs

Váradi told the paper in an interview published today that over the next nine years, Wizz Air plans to expand its fleet to 282 aircraft, triple the current size. He noted that the airline has recently signed a deal with France’s Airbus for the delivery of 146 new aircraft that will be added to the current fleet of 87.The first A320neo aircraft are expected to take off in Wizz Air colours in 2022 and the last are to be delivered in 2026. As a result of previous orders, though, the carrier will have 100 aircraft by May 2018, Váradi said.

Under an agreement signed with Airbus in 2015, 110 new A321neo aircraft worth USD 12.5 billion will be arriving to Wizz Air between 2019 and 2024.

We believe that in the financial year ending next March we’ll carry 30 million passengers, versus about 24 million in the previous year. And once we operate 300 aircraft, the number of our passengers could reach 100 million

, said Váradi.

Váradi also noted that in parallel with the expansion of the fleet, Wizz Air’s headcount could also triple and reach 10,000 over the next nine years. He added that 90% of the workforce are airborne staff, i.e. pilots and cabin crew.

As regards recruitment, pilots are the bottleneck since they can be considered a global resource on a European level. We can easily recruit new associates for administrative areas, and given that the airline offers competitive wages for cabin-crew members, it’s not a problem finding new ones, either.

Asked about the bankruptcy of Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline and Europe’s tenth-largest in terms of passengers carried, Váradi said this process will not stop there.

“This is not a unique case, not by a longshot", he said, reminding that Monarch Airlines of the UK has also gone belly-up, “and, I believe, we can expect additional bankruptcies".

There are a lot of irrational behaviours on the market. Some of these have political roots, as a result of which several national airlines are kept in an incubator. But there are irrational elements among private investors too, these led to the collapse of Air Berlin and Monarch Airlines.

Váradi believes these issues will be sorted out by the market, and just like in the United States - where out of dozens of airlines four major were left standing - consolidation in Europe will continue.

“But the end of this process is still far away."

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