Wizz Air plans to create 130 direct jobs in Cyprus in 2024

Wizz Air, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, plans to create 130 direct jobs in Cyprus this year supporting 5,500 local jobs in the associated industries.

At a recent Media Breakfast, representatives from Wizz Air’s headquarters in Budapest, Andras Rado, Senior Manager Corporate Communications, and Zsuzsa Trubek, Corporate Communications Manager, presented and discussed the company's operations in Europe and the Middle East, as well as its significant presence in Cyprus.

And besides the new job opportunities, they also revealed that the airline has over 1.3 million available seats on sale for this summer, when it will be executing 25 routes to 16 countries from its Larnaca base this year; and it has already observed a growing trend in bookings for leisure and VFR destinations,

Record breaking year for Cyprus travel

In 2023, Cyprus achieved its second best tourism performance in history and the best for passenger traffic, welcoming over 11 million foreign nationals – 18% more than in 2022. There has been a notably growing interest by visitors from Hungary, Italy and Poland.

According to Trubek, Wizz Air contributed significantly to the record number of passengers travelling to Cyprus, with the majority coming from the UK, Poland, Greece, Armenia, Romania and Hungary, and making it the island’s biggest airline. Its capacity increased by 70% in 2023 compared to the year before, increased its number of aircraft at its Larnaca base from two to four, more than doubled its booked passengers, and increased its completion rate from 98.73% to 99.63%.

It operated over 11,000 flights to and from the island, recording a significant 63% increase over 2022, while it brought over €200m investment to the market.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary

Since taking off on its first flight from Katowice to London Luton in 2004, Wizz Air has celebrated a number of important milestones, including being listed on the LSE in 2015 and establishing the Wizz Air Training Centre in 2018. It celebrated its first 100 million passengers in 2015, with the number doubling to 200 million just four years later, while by 2022, the airline had carried more than 300 million passengers.

As Trubek and Rado explained, the low-cost airline has focused heavily on sustainability – particularly during the pandemic years, when airlines were suffering significant losses – introducing an entire new line of aircraft; namely the “game changer” Airbus A320neo and A32neo family that has the lowest environmental footprint per passenger, 20% lower fuel burn and 50% lower noise emission.

Wizz Air currently flies to almost 200 destinations in over 50 countries. It employs 8,200 people, while in 2023 it carried some 60.3 million passengers (a 32% increase over 2022). It operates from 33 bases in 16 countries – including Cyprus.

In 2023, it took delivery of 32 brand new Airbus A321neo Aircraft, while it ranked third among all European airlines in terms of completed scheduled flights, with a rate of 99.31%.

It also ranked in the top three airlines in Europe by the share of flights operated exactly on time.

In terms of sustainability, the airline said its Co2 intensity was reduced by 6.8% in 2023 compared to the year before, producing 51.5 grams per passenger kilometer, which was the best result in the industry.

With an average aircraft age of 4.25 years, Wizz Air is considered the greenest choice for flying, being named “Global Environmental Sustainability Airline Group of the Year 2023” by the CAPA – Centre for Aviation, “World’s 3rd Youngest Aircraft Fleet 2024” in the category “100+ aircraft in the Fleet” by ch-aviation and “Most Sustainable Low-Cost Airline in 2023” by World Finance magazine.