The 10-year cooperation between Debrecen and the airline Wizz Air was called a success story by the parliamentary state secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the press conference held on the occasion of the anniversary at Debrecen airport on Tuesday.
Magyar Levente said that in order to continue and stabilize the successes, the state bought the majority ownership of the company that operates the airport at the beginning of the year, thus Debrecen is the only Hungarian state-owned international airport in the country.
He pointed out that a series of challenges are befalling the aviation industry, Hungary’s economy, including Debrecen and the region: immediately after the coronavirus epidemic, “the crisis with even greater scope and far-reaching consequences in the form of the Russian-Ukrainian war”.
The government is trying to avert the negative effects of the latter on Hungary with all its might, “we are spending thousands of billions so that Hungarian families and Hungarian companies are freed from the consequences as much as possible,” said Levente Magyar.
He added: in the meantime, they do not lose sight of the fact that there are important tasks from the point of view of the country’s economy and operation, which should not be abandoned. This is what he called maintaining the functionality of the Debrecen airport.
As he said, the government is preparing to implement a very ambitious development program. As soon as the war situation and the resulting consequences allow it, I would like to see Debrecen’s role in the region stabilized by 2030, also in terms of flight capacity, and to provide a perspective that, for the next century, will position the city in the Central European, South Eastern -makes it one of the economic bastions of the European region.
According to Magyar Levente, Debrecen’s performance is unique: in recent years, the city has been able to attract around ten percent of Hungary’s annual GDP in economic investment value.
Just as Wizz Air’s success story and its cooperation with Debrecen are unique, he added.
József Váradi, CEO of Wizz Air, emphasized: the airline’s situation is stable, they have 1.6 billion euros in cash to ensure liquidity, and they are looking ahead and developing even in today’s difficult situation.
He recalled that the airline’s development over the past ten years was also connected to Debrecen: in July 2012, they launched their first London-Luton flight from Debrecen, and a few years later they established an operational base at the airport.
The period of the coronavirus epidemic and then the war situation rewrote their plans, but they did not give up on continuous development: during the epidemic, they took delivery of 60 new aircraft, which enable more efficient and economical operation, said the CEO, noting that this year already They carry 53 million passengers, 33 percent more than in 2019 when the number of passengers was 40 million.
He added: they have the youngest aircraft fleet in Europe, they now have 170 aircraft, this number will be tripled by the end of the decade, and they currently have orders placed for 435 aircraft. This is the largest order book in the world – said József Váradi, indicating that within 8-10 years they want to become the airline operating with the lowest costs and offering the lowest ticket prices.
László Papp (Fidesz-KDNP), the mayor of Debrecen, called the government and Wizz Air the city’s two most important partners in the development of the airport.
A milestone in this was the launch of Wizz Air’s first London-Luton scheduled flight ten years ago – he said, noting that Debrecen has been talking about economic development successes for the past eight years, in which the operating airport played a key role.
During this period, more than 10 billion euros, or HUF 4,000 billion at today’s exchange rate, came to the city, which is unique in Europe – the mayor described the development.
According to his list, 18,000 passengers visited the airport in 2011, and this number exceeded 600,000 in 2019. In 2020, the number of passengers fell to 70,000, in 2021 it was 125,000, and this year it is expected to be twice that, 250,000, that is, “we are back on the growth track,” he said.
He also indicated that Wizz Air flights carried 1.1 million passengers from Debrecen in ten years, and the same number arrived in the city on the airline’s flights.
MTI
Photo: MTI/Zsolt Czeglédi
