Wizz Air has unveiled the next stage of its London Gatwick expansion. Four new routes will begin this summer, along with frequency increases on some existing services. The changes – which will use non-Gatwick-based aircraft – remove two more Luton routes.

Wizz Air adds four more Gatwick routes

The new routes will start in summer and are shown below, with two mentioned nearly a year ago in the carrier's slot submission. All four will use non-based aircraft, with Burgas, Palermo, and Venice becoming bases during the pandemic, joining Varna, which opened in 2017.

  1. Burgas: four-weekly, June 15th (leaving Gatwick at 21:25 and arriving in Burgas at 03:05, but Wizz Air needs to use its Gatwick slots)
  2. Palermo: twice-weekly, March 29th
  3. Varna: five-weekly, June 13th (arriving at 02:55!)
  4. Venice Marco Polo: five-weekly, March 27th

In keeping with the vast majority of Wizz Air's Gatwick routes, the four new offerings will also have head-to-head competition with one to two others. The Bulgarian destinations will face easyJet and TUI, Venice will see BA EuroFlyer and easyJet, and Palmero only easyJet.

The latest development follows Wizz Air obtaining more Gatwick slots, enabling four additional based aircraft. It joins multiple changes at Gatwick this year, including BA's new lower-cost unit, Vueling adding a base, Norse Atlantic likely taking off, BA itself introducing additional routes from the airport, and Eastern Airways running the Newquay-Gatwick PSO.

New and increased routes at Gatwick
Yellow = new routes; purple = increasing frequency. Based on a week in mid-July, Vienna and Milan are now twice-daily (up from once-daily), and Larnaca is 10-weekly (from once-daily). The additional flights to Larnaca will arrive in Gatwick at 19:15, leave at 20:00, and arrive back at 02:45+1. Image: OAG.

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Now 25 Gatwick routes this summer

The additional routes bring to 25 Wizz Air's Gatwick network this summer, although it's likely more routes will be announced. With seven destinations, Italy has more than anywhere else, with the country now the ULCC's largest. Wizz Air now has seven Italian destinations from Gatwick, over twice as many as it does in Bulgaria, Greece, and Spain

Wizz Air at Gatwick and Luton
Wizz Air's networks at Luton (orange) and Gatwick (green) are rather different, which will remain. Image: OAG.

Luton loses out

One consequence of the Gatwick growth is that routes some routes at Luton have been swapped to Gatwick, with Luton's network (temporarily) shrinking. For Wizz Air, Luton remains vital for Central and Eastern Europe and a limited number of (normally sun-and-spade) Western markets. Luton has often struggled with bigger cities in Western Europe, and many have moved to Gatwick – bigger markets with more awareness from Gatwick, but more direct competition.

  1. Athens
  2. Bari
  3. Catania
  4. Faro
  5. Milan Malpensa
  6. Naples
  7. Rome Fiumicino
  8. Vienna
  9. Palermo (already ended)
  10. Venice Marco Polo (end March 26th, starts at Gatwick the day after)

It'll be interesting to see how Wizz Air uses its freed-up Luton slots. Two more routes are coming: Casablanca (starting on March 28th, three-weekly) and Sarajevo (March 29th, twice-weekly). Others are likely.


With thanks to Sean Moulton.

What do you make of the Wizz Air at Gatwick and Luton? Let us know in the comments.