Wizz Air plans to buy more than 300 new planes in coming years

Wizz Air plans to buy more than 300 new airplanes in the coming years and have 20,000 employees by 2030, CE Jozsef Varadi told Hungarian news website index.hu in an interview published on Tuesday. If successful, Wizz Air would more than double the size of its fleet, and the number of its employees from 9,000 currently. "We currently have 208 aircraft, with more than 300 more in the pipeline...our goal is to have a fleet of 500 aircraft by 2030-2032," Varadi said. "The expansion of the aircraft fleet... will create opportunities for new base airports and even establishing new airline companies." Varadi said geopolitical tensions such as the war in Ukraine and conflict between Israel and Hamas, had forced the company to re-allocate unused capacity in those regions, leading to suboptimal capacity exploitation. An ongoing engine recall is also keeping a fifth of the company's fleet grounded. "These events will affect our performance in the short term," Varadi said.<br/>