Blow to airport as Wizz quits service

Cork Airport has been dealt a blow with news that Hungarian airline Wizz Air will discontinue its services from there in the coming weeks.

The airline, which has operated out of Cork since 2006, already axed services to Warsaw and Wroclaw in Poland as well as Vilnius in Lithuania in January.

Over the next two months, Wizz will pull the last three remaining services to Gdansk (April 7), Poznan (April 8) and Katowice.

There has been speculation for several months that Wizz would withdraw from Cork completely, particularly after Ryanair commenced operations on the Wroclaw, Vilnius and Gdansk routes.

Wizz Air said the decision to leave Cork resulted from weakening demand on the routes, once popular with immigrant workers. It’s understood up to last October, Wizz Air had been achieving load factors of 80% or more on the routes.

However, this dropped to below 70% in some cases following the arrival of Ryanair.

The airline, announcing its decision to discontinue services to and from Cork, noted that immigration between Poland and Ireland was down by 40% over its 2007 peak.

Wizz Air said a “total swap” of routes was in response to a great demand from Norwegians and Polish and Lithuanian workers who had been securing employment in Norway.

The airline says it will refund any passengers who have made bookings on the services due to cease.