Skopje, 19 December 2024 (MIA) - Airlines are facing increasing costs due to inflationary pressure and also environmental regulation burdens but we are able to absorb many of these additional costs in order to keep the low fares and stimulate demand, the Operations Officer at Wizz Air Hungary, Roland Tischner, told MIA in an interview.

MIA spoke to Tischner during his visit to Skopje to launch the carrier’s new flights from the Skopje International Airport to Barcelona, Lyon and Stuttgart, for which it will receive subsidies from the Government of North Macedonia.

In the interview, Tischner said passengers should continue to count on low flight fares.

“We believe in low fares, actually our whole business model was built on offering affordable travel options to our passengers. Now, airlines are facing increasing costs due to inflationary pressure and also regulation, environmental regulation burdens but I think there are two ways to approach it. One is that you take all these additional costs, and you price up and you charge it to the passengers – no, this is not the way we want to do business. What we do, we have the best fleet, the youngest fleet with the least carbon footprint in Europe, we also have high operational efficiency and with that we are able to absorb many of these additional costs in order to keep the low fares and stimulate demand,” Tischner said.

Following the latest call for subsidies from the Government for new routes, Tischner noted that the carrier is looking into additional opportunities based on the new support schemes.

“We are constantly looking for new opportunities, right now we announced three new destinations – Barcelona, which I was asked about many times when I was here in the country before, we have Lyon and we have Stuttgart. Later on, we might make an announcement about Ohrid – Basel, but right now these are what we are focusing on, but we are looking into additional opportunities based on new support schemes as well,” Tischner said. 

He assessed the Government’s support schemes are a boost for the Macedonian economy and the people because they open new destinations and create direct and indirect jobs in the country.

Following Wizz Air’s reduction of some flights in the region because of supply chain issues related to the GTF engines, Tischner said the carrier will be able to gradually add back its capacity due to new Airbus deliveries.

“As many other airlines, we were impacted by major supply chain issues, particularly regarding our GTF engines. GTF is one of the most efficient engines on the market, however, due to some manufacturing problems many of these engines had to be recalled for inspection and because of that we had to park some parts of our fleet. Because of the parking of those aircraft, we had to cut some of our capacity, hence we also had to reduce some of the routes that we provided for the customers. Now the good news is that with the new Airbus deliveries that we are getting, we are able to gradually add back the fleet, add back the capacity, and some of these routes might come back in the near term,” Tischner said.

MIA also spoke to Tischner about the opportunities for the development of the country’s airports and the importance of ongoing and future investments in the area.

“We have a very good relationship with the airport management. It’s a long-lasting cooperation between Skopje Airport and Wizz Air, we like this airport, we are very satisfied with the performance. It has certain limitations regarding the infrastructure of the airport, as you know there are limitations of departures per hour. However, the airport is already investing in new equipment, particularly on the security side, the scanners, they are old and there are only two lines, but they are investing into new scanners those will be hopefully in place already next summer increasing the capacity, with that I assume we will be able to further increase our capacity. There are also some other long-term developments which of course we’ll need to get into completion but overall, if these developments happen, as you might know there are also some limitations on landing after sunset, it’s only one direction. Also, Skopje tends to be quite foggy in winter, so we have some days when we have to divert operations to other airports. These are obviously long-term investments, it cannot be fixed in one day, but with these improvements I think the airport has almost endless opportunity to grow,” Tischner noted.

Asked about Wizz Air’s competition in the market, Tischner stressed that the carrier competes with many legacy and low-cost carriers.

“We are used to it. Actually, we like competition, it makes our airline tougher and better. With that said, we have a better cost base, we know the market better, we have a commitment to the Macedonian market, and we are a market leader here, so I have no doubt that we have a better position to compete on this route versus our competitor,” Tischner told MIA. 

Photo: MIA

Journalist: Lidija Velkovska

Video/editing: Asllan Vishko and Vladimir Rabasovikj