Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, a joint venture of a state-owned Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company and Hungary’s Wizz Air, has finally taken off for the inaugural flight from its base in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.
On January 15, 2021, after multiple delays, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi launched its operations on the Abu Dhabi – Athens route. Flight WAZ7007 marked the beginning of commercial passenger operations from its home base at Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH). The airline’s Airbus A321neo aircraft, registered as A6-WZA, departed from AUH at 1:15 p.m local time (UTC +4), for a six-hour-long flight to Athens International Airport (ATH), Greece.
In addition to the recently launched Athens route, the low-cost airline also plans to launch Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) – Thessaloniki Airport (SKH) flights on February 4, 2021.
In December 2020, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi announced that an initial route network would also include Alexandria, Egypt, Kutaisi, Georgia, Larnaca, Cyprus, Odessa, Ukraine, and Yerevan, Armenia. The subsidiary of Wizz Air expects to expand the network in the near future as it adds more aircraft to the Abu Dhabi base. At the moment, it is made up of 3 Airbus A321neo aircraft.
Wizz Air Abu Dhabi postponed the long-awaited launch of operations several times. The airline received its first Airbus A321neo aircraft in September 2020 and received its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) from the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) the following month.
At first, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi hurried to schedule initial operations out of the UAE base and planned the launch of the base on October 1, 2020, with Kutaisi (KUT) and Odessa (ODS) as the inaugural 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 awaited start did not happen again.
Earlier in June 2020, József Váradi, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Wizz Air, announced his ambitious plans that the fleet of Wizz Air Abu Dhabi would reach 100 Airbus A321neo aircraft by the end of 2035.