Wizz Air Launches First Flights from Budapest to Saudi Arabia

Wizz Air is launching two new flights from Budapest to Saudi Arabia from January, the airline informed MTI in a statement on Thursday. Since January 9, flights to Riyadh and Jeddah have been operating twice a week from the Hungarian capital.

Wizz Air has already launched flights from Austria and Italy to these two cities at the end of 2022. The two new flights from Budapest are part of the twenty-three new routes Wizz Air is planning, in order to add to the one million passengers it will carry to Saudi Arabia this year.

The airline’s growing presence will support Saudi Arabia’s Vision 30 program, which aims to triple passenger traffic to the country.

With the two new routes, Wizz Air now flies from Budapest to ten destinations in the Middle East, Wizz Air President Robert Carey said in the statement.

The new flight route could also be good news for football fans, as world-class footballer Christiano Ronaldo has signed with Al Nassr FC in Saudi Arabia. So anyone who wants to watch the footballer play live can now travel directly to the Middle Eastern country to do so.

Meanwhile, Wizz Air has big plans for the future: it has negotiated the purchase of 75 new A321neo aircraft with Airbus, with the majority of the aircraft expected to be delivered in 2028-29. According to their earlier statement, the acquisition of the 75 new A321neo aircraft is another step towards Wizz Air’s goal of tripling the size of its fleet to 500 aircraft by the end of the decade. The new A321neo aircraft will also offer significant environmental benefits thanks to its modern aviation technology solutions, with noise emissions reduced by around 50 percent, fuel consumption reduced by 20 percent, and nitrogen oxide emissions reduced by 50 percent.

The airline already leads the way in environmental protection, with Airportal.hu recently reporting that Wizz Air’s average carbon dioxide emissions per passenger-kilometer in 2022 were a record low of just 55.2 grams. It is also the lowest in the industry, and the airline has set a further target to reduce emissions intensity by a further 25 percent by 2030.

According to Wizz Air’s most recently published figures for the first half of its 2023 financial year ending in September 2022, passenger traffic increased by 112 percent, revenue by 149 percent and operating profit by 32.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

Featured photo via Wizz Air, Facebook/Jeddah Airport