$80m investment; 8 routes and over 300 tourism jobs
Wizz Air, the largest low-cost, low-fare airline in Central and Eastern Europe, today celebrated the opening of its Skopje base with the arrival of a brand new Airbus A320 aircraft. The first new flight on the Skopje aircraft took off to Eindhoven at 10:45 local time with 168 passengers and six crew on board.
The official airport opening today was attended by Macedonia’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Vladimir Peshevski who welcomed the first passengers departing on Wizz Air’s new aircraft and the arrival of more low fares and tourism development for Macedonia with now 8 Wizz Air routes operating from Skopje to/from Basel Mulhouse, Dortmund, Eindhoven, London Luton, Malmo, Milan Bergamo, Munich Memmingen and Venice Treviso.
These 8 routes will carry over 300,000 passengers in the first year and support over 300 local jobs.
8 LOW-FARE SKOPJE ROUTES
Route | MKD fares from * |
Basel Mulhouse | 790 | NEW |
Dortmund | 1,090 | NEW |
Eindhoven | 1,090 | NEW |
London Luton | 1,690 |
Malmo | 1,690 | NEW |
Milan Bergamo | 550 | NEW |
Munich Memmingen | 550 | NEW |
Venice Treviso | 790 |
Speaking in Skopje, John Stephenson, Executive Vice President at Wizz Air, said: "We are very pleased to open Wizz Air’s 16th low-cost base in Skopje today. Since our announcement of six exciting new routes, consumers in Macedonia and in the countries we now connect to Skopje, have flocked to our website to access Wizz Air’s low fares and over 25,000 passengers have already booked Skopje flights on these new routes, bringing the total number of Wizz Air passengers in Macedonia since the launch just over one year ago to over 100,000. Low cost air traffic is now set to grow strongly to over 300,000 passengers in the first year of our new base. We thank the Macedonian Government for its commitment to promoting tourism with direct low cost flights, which will help to support much needed jobs in Macedonia’s tourism industry. We celebrate the base opening today by releasing seats with fares available from just MKD 550 on wizzair.com".
Mr Vladimir Peshevski, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, said:
"The number of tourists visiting Macedonia will now grow every year, and this will be a direct impact from our investment into low cost air travel. We are pleased that one of Europe’s leading airlines, Wizz Air, has committed to develop Macedonian air travel and today we congratulate the airline and their local staff for the beginning of Skopje based operations and arrival of new aircraft."
* one way price including taxes and maximum booking fee