Hungary’s Wizz Air buys 50 more A320 from Airbus

Wizz Air ordered 50 A320 narrowbody airliners with a list price of $3.65 billion from Wizz Air, that’s expanding its network across eastern Europe. The contract will take Wizz’s A320 fleet to 82, Toulouse, France-based Airbus said in a statement today.

The Budapest- based airline will use the planes to open new routes and add frequencies on existing services, the statement said. Airbus delivered 330 planes in the first nine months, one more than Boeing Co., as it seeks to remain the world’s biggest maker of commercial aircraft. The Wizz order is the European company’s biggest from the region for a single model, it said. Wizz began flying in May 2004 and now has bases in three Polish cities as well as Budapest, Sofia and Bucharest.

It plans to open a seventh in Poznan, Poland, in January. The closely held airline may seek to raise £500 million ($1 billion) through a share sale in London, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported April 25, without saying where it got the information. Shares of Airbus parent European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Co. were trading up 0.7% at €22.6 as of 10:36 a.m. in Paris. They’re down 13% so far this year. Wizz’s new planes will have 180 seats in a single-class layout, Airbus said. „Wizz Air has demonstrated its ability for sustainable growth, where cost efficiency is the key, CEO József Váradi said in the Airbus statement. „Our choice of aircraft plays a big part in this cost efficiency.” (Bg, mfor.hu)