Wizz Air, Europe’s greenest airline*, today announces a new base at Gatwick Airport, which will be the third base for Wizz Air UK, the group’s UK-registered and based airline, alongside London Luton and the recently announced Doncaster Sheffield. The airline will allocate 1 Airbus A321 aircraft to the South London hub and launch four new routes to leisure destinations in Greece, Italy, Spain and Malta from 22 October 2020.

Wizz Air started flying from Gatwick in 2016, and since then has carried almost 1 million passengers. With the creation of a new base at Gatwick, Wizz Air will offer passengers even more affordable travel opportunities, with 450,000 seats per annum on sale on its new routes to popular holiday destinations including Athens (Greece), Naples (Italy), Lanzarote (Spain) and Malta for the remainder of the year.

Tickets are now available on wizzair.com  or the WIZZ mobile app, with fares starting from just £21.99** and to celebrate Wizz Air’s expansion at London Gatwick today, the airline is offering a special 72-hour deal on its WIZZ Flex service, offering passengers 50%*** off on all London Gatwick routes booked on wizzair.com between 18 and 20 August 2020 for an unlimited travel period, when WIZZ Flex is purchased with basic fare. With WIZZ Flex, passengers can cancel their flight up to 3 hours before departure without any fee and get 100% of the original fare immediately reimbursed in airline credit, as well as change dates and even routes an unlimited number of times, for added peace of mind during these uncertain times.

This announcement follows the recent expansion at Doncaster Sheffield, its first regional base, where the airline will allocate one Airbus A321 aircraft and launch seven new routes to destinations including Alicante, Malaga, Larnaca, Faro, Lublin, Kosice and Suceava in October 2020.

The addition of these new routes from Gatwick and Doncaster Sheffield represents significant growth of Wizz Air’s UK network, with the airline now operating 119 routes to 69 destinations from 11 UK airports. The creation of these two new Wizz Air UK bases also follows on from a period of rapid growth across the entire Wizz Air network, with recent announcements of new WIZZ bases in Doncaster Sheffield, Bacău, Dortmund, Lviv, Larnaca, Milan-Malpensa, Tirana, Saint Petersburg and the launch of over 200 new routes across the network since April 2020. Today’s announcement will see Wizz Air create over 40 direct jobs and over 125 indirect jobs****in the region.

Wizz Air has been at the forefront of the industry restart by creating a new safe model for flying with the implementation of stringent health and hygiene measures to protect passengers and crew. HEPA filters on all Wizz Air aircraft already filter out 99.97% of viruses and bacteria from the air, and Wizz Air’s new protocols support physical distancing guidelines, ensure an ultra-clean environment on board and reduce any non-essential human interaction and physical contact, so that WIZZ passengers can feel confident that they are travelling to their destination safely.

Owain Jones, Managing Director of Wizz Air UK said: “Already the fourth largest airline group operating in the UK, today’s announcement of our new Gatwick base and four new routes reinforces Wizz Air UK’s position as a British airline that is growing, creating new jobs, bringing much-needed connectivity to the UK and so helping the economy get back in the air. Following on from last week’s announcement of a new Wizz Air UK base at Doncaster Sheffield Airport, we stand ready to continue to support the UK’s recovery with further growth at key airports, if slot-blocking by other airlines is stopped allowing WIZZ to deliver on our promise of providing affordable travel for all. Now more customers in the London area and the South of England than ever before can take advantage of Wizz Air’s ultra-low fares to travel to their favourite sunny holiday spot on-board our young and green fleet of Airbus aircraft, with our new Gatwick flights starting just in time for the October half-term – and with our special offer on WIZZ Flex, you can book in confidence that you can change your travel plans as many times as you need to, with no change fee.”

Stewart Wingate, CEO at Gatwick Airport, said: “This is encouraging news for Gatwick, particularly at a time when the industry has been so negatively impacted by COVID-19. Having a new aircraft based at Gatwick underpins the resilience of our business for the long-term and ensures we continue to offer our passengers great choice. This is a welcome indication of the positive conversations we are having with airlines – both existing and new - about securing Gatwick’s future.”