Originally Posted by
RogueOne
What sort of operation, and numbers of flights would need to be in place for Wizz to consider a base at BHX?
I would guess primarily routes to destinations that Wizz Air does not already have a base?... For example Tel Aviv, Athens, Lisbon, Split, Oslo, Reykjavik, Ohrid, etc They do however overlap some routes, for example a morning flight might be operated from there home base in Poland to Luton and then the afternoon flight will be operated to that destination my an LTN based Wizz UK aircraft.
Before the LTN base was ever established they night stopped one or two Wizz Aircraft at LTN and also quite a few routes were previously W routes. (eg, Budapest-Luton-Split-Luton-Budapest).
Being realistic though and not meaning to let your hopes fade, the Wizz operation at BHX is quite small and only of a similar size to that of at Liverpool, Doncaster and Bristol, where they have been operating for 5+ years. Most of these routes are operated several times a week, where Luton has had multiple daily routes to many of these major Eastern European cities with Wizz for numerous years before the base was even set up.
However when you look at their base at Vienna, they never had a presence there whatsoever before, and just stormed in opening up numerous routes and basing five aircraft. But until last year the airport only had a smattering of low-cost airline routes.