Interview with Wizz Air CEO and co-founder, József Váradi, on RLIVE TV

Oh, my pleasure. It's always great to be in a country bringing good news, and I think today is a very special day here in Moldova, in Chișinău, to bring really good news to the market. Look, I mean, if you look at the history of this airline, we are really the product of the whole European idea. We started operating the airline more than 20 years ago, and that coincided with the accession of 10 countries to the European Union, and I know this is a very relevant topic of discussions here in Moldova. And that made us a borderless European business, a European airline. And I would say that we have been really liberating the markets in central and eastern Europe. We created a lot of connections, connectivity between the mainstream western European side with the up and coming central and eastern European side, and that was the backbone of Wizz Air's development. So really, we are European connectivity as a business, and we are very happy to keep carrying that flag and bring that flag over to the new applicants for European Union accession. We have been operational in Moldova for some time, and we like the country, we like the market, we like the consumers. I think there is real demand for Wizz Air services and products, and we can really bring something to the market that is appealing. We are very low cost. We lower the barrier to entry, and as a result, we create the opportunities for people to travel.

Well, you know, we fly the youngest fleet of aircraft of any airline pretty much in the world. So we see that low cost operation comes together with continuous innovation in technology. So we have been a very innovative airline, not only in terms of discovering new markets but also continuously investing into technology, new aircraft. New technology is better operation, lower cost operation, probably safer all together. Of course you need significant financial resources. So you have to be smart as a business to make sure that you create those financial resources to run such an innovation, to run such a scale of operation as we are doing. But I believe that the success of Wizz Air, back to your first question, is focus on the right markets, trying to create the right products for the markets, very low cost, low fare propositions to the consumers, and do it through innovation and a very safe operation. I mean, we are probably one of the safest operating platforms of any airline in the world with that regard.

Yeah, I think it's a few things. One is that obviously when you bring low fares, low prices to the market, many more people find it appealing, accessible, and they reconsider whether or not they should be traveling. I mean, we are seeing a lot of new customers being converted from non-flying into flying. And once you start flying, you understand how efficient that is as a way of transportation. It's like no time, no hassle, and actually it's cheaper probably than any other way of traveling. So you get the taste and you get addicted to it. So we basically are sourcing our business by converting non-flyers into flying, and once you fly, we want to make sure that you fly more. And that's why you see our business continuously growing, not only in terms of geographical coverage but also within the country. So today we announced aircraft number four and number five to be brought to Chișinău, and our overall capacity is now increasing from this year 1.8 million seats in the country to 3 million, which is like a 70% jump in capacity because of this, because more people want to fly and those who fly want to fly more.

Yeah, you would be most welcome to come to Budapest for dinner. That's for sure. And I think you're absolutely right because actually this is what's happening. Flying evolves not only being a necessity for something but also a discretionary consideration of people. And actually I know quite a lot of people who go somewhere for dining and they only go there for dinner. But low cost flying opens up the whole world to people, not only for jobs or studies but also for leisure. It is also essential for a country like Moldova you want to expose your tourism highlights to the world, you need infrastructure to do that, and we know that a lot of people travel for leisure, for tourism purposes, based on accessibility and cost of infrastructure to get that. So it's not only considering how much it's going to cost to be in Moldova or in another country, but also how do I get there and how much will it cost. So we see that we can fundamentally contribute to all those consumer needs, and all in all, low cost flying has a very bright future going forward.