After multiple delays, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, a joint venture of a state-owned Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company and Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) (WIZZ), has finally set the date for an inaugural flight from its base in the United Arab Emirates.
Wizz Air Abu Dhabi confirmed to local media that it would launch operations on Abu Dhabi – Athens route on January 15, 2021. The price for a one-way inaugural flight ticket will cost $35.1, based on the airline’s booking system. In addition to Athens, the low-cost airline will also start the Abu Dhabi – Thessaloniki flights on February 4, 2021, with prices starting from $40.5 for a one-way ticket.
The initial Wizz Air Abu Dhabi network would consist of six destinations including Athens (ATH), Kutaisi (KUT), Larnaca (LCA), Odessa (ODS), Yerevan (EVN), and Alexandria Borg El Arab (HBE). The subsidiary of Wizz Air expects to expand the network in the near future as it adds more aircraft to Abu Dhabi-based fleet. At the moment, it is made of 3 Airbus 321neo aircraft.
The low-cost air carrier has postponed the long-awaited launch of operations multiple times. The airline received its first Airbus A321neo aircraft in September 2020 and got its Air Operator Certificate (AOC) from the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) of the UAE the following month.
At first, the Wizz Air subsidiary hurried to schedule the initial operations out of the UAE base and planned the launch of the base on October 1, 2020, with Kutaisi (KUT) and Odessa (ODS) destinations. However, due to travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the carrier was forced to delay the launch by two weeks until October 16, 2020. Then, for an undisclosed reason, the company decided to postpone the launch repeatedly until November 15, 2020, but the impatiently awaited start did not happen again.
Earlier in June 2020, Jozsef Varadi, the CEO of Wizz Air, announced his ambitious predictions that the fleet of Wizz Air Abu Dhabi in the UAE base would reach 100 Airbus A321neo aircraft by the end of 2035.
