Wizz Air is to set up maintenance operations in a newly built hangar at Budapest airport.
The budget carrier has signed a contract with the Hungarian capital’s hub operator to build a one-bay hangar which is to be opened in August 2015. The approximately 2,000m² (21,500ft²) facility is to be exclusively used by Wizz under a 15-year lease deal, says Budapest airport.
Some Ft900 million ($4 million) will be invested by the airport to build the hangar in between the existing facilities of local maintenance provider Aeroplex of Central Europe and Lufthansa Technik.
Wizz will be able to conduct checks “from line maintenance to full overhaul” and thus gain an opportunity for “smoother” operations, says airport chief executive Jost Lammers.
The carrier has thus far outsourced MRO services and been a key customer of LHT’s narrowbody heavy airframe maintenance base in Budapest.
Wizz plans to employ approximately 70 engineers at the new hangar.
Flightglobal’s Ascend Online database lists 50 Airbus A320s in the airline’s fleet. Wizz has on order 62 A320-family aircraft.
The hangar deal was revealed as Wizz expanded its Budapest-based fleet to eight aircraft.
In addition to being headquartered at the airport, Wizz has an operations and simulator centre there.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
