Wizz Air announced that it will open its Riga base with one new Airbus A320 on 19 June 2014.
Coinciding with the delivery of the aircraft the airline will start operating 4 new routes from Riga to Barcelona, Doncaster Sheffield, Dortmund, Paris Beauvais, and increase frequencies on the services to London Luton and Oslo Torp.
With the new destinations Wizz Air is now offering 25 weekly flights on 8 routes from Latvia’s capital, representing 85% capacity growth year on year (July 2014). The airline believes its expansion in Riga will also stimulate the local job market in aviation and tourism sectors as consumers will have access to more low cost services.
At a press conference in Riga, József Váradi, Wizz Air’s CEO said: “Today’s announcement underlines Wizz Air’s commitment to Latvia. We started our operations in Riga 4 years ago and already carried 200,000 passengers in 2013. The new Riga base will not only bring a significant capital investment, but also create a number of local jobs with Wizz Air and our local business partners. Latvia is becoming our 10th country where we have established base operations. We look forward to becoming the airline of choice of Latvian consumers and visitors.”