Wizz Air Targets Cost Savings With New CEE Bases

Wizz Air says its network restructuring will begin delivering financial benefits from the 2027 fiscal year as new bases across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) open and the airline completes exits from Vienna and Abu Dhabi.

The carrier confirmed that its bases at Warsaw Modlin, Bratislava, Tuzla, Podgorica and Yerevan—each launching with two aircraft—will provide partial cost improvements in the second half of the current financial year and “more meaningful” savings from March onward.

In its interim report, Wizz described the moves as part of a “renewed focus on core CEE markets,” with the base portfolio deliberately re-weighted away from higher-cost stations.

“Seventy, 75% of the business [is] in Central Eastern Europe,” CEO József Váradi said on an analyst call following the publication of Wizz’s first-half results. “With the new base openings—and adding aircraft on an ongoing basis to our key Central Eastern European markets—we continue to fuel that strategy.”

The airline is also stationing additional aircraft across existing core markets such as Skopje, Sofia, Katowice, Krakow, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Tirana and Chisinau. It says these deployments are already delivering early commercial benefits and improving revenue quality, consolidating its position in destinations where brand awareness and demand growth are strongest.

Wizz’s withdrawal from Vienna is now fully scheduled, with Váradi confirming the base “will be completed by March 2026,” a move the ULCC says will remove structural cost pressures that have weighed on unit economics in Austria’s competitive market. The company’s exit from its Abu Dhabi joint venture, completed in September, is similarly intended to redirect aircraft toward more resilient, higher-yield segments across Europe.

Váradi told analysts the Abu Dhabi wind-down was executed “against a fairly benign financial platform,” adding that the business expects “significant upsides coming through” from the next financial year as its CEE-focused model scales. While Wizz will maintain a presence in the UAE through point-to-point flying under its Hungarian air operator certificate, he says the airline is “not planning on setting up bases” in the Gulf going forward.

As reported by Aviation Week, Wizz’s revenue for the six months to Sept. 30 rose 9% year-on-year to €3.34 billion ($3.88 billion), while net profit increased 2.6% to €323.5 million. The airline confirmed that its amended Airbus agreement, announced on Nov. 7, will reset annual fleet growth to roughly 10% to 12% from fiscal 2027 onward, down from the 20% expansion rate it expects this year.