Wizz Air dismisses false claims made by regional Romanian carrier

Wizz Air today responded to spurious claims made by ailing regional airline Carpatair to the media concerning alleged state aid at Timisoara airport.

Wizz Air believes that the Pitesti Court of Appeal’s recent ruling is a flawed judgment given by a court that has no competence in or understanding of the issues involved and which has failed to follow proper procedure in the case. It upholds a bizarre decision of the judge in the Timis Tribunal which relied on the judge’s own assumptions, rather than any empirical evidence or analysis. As a matter of law, which the Pitesti Court of Appeals has seen fit to disregard, only the European Commission is competent to decide on issues of alleged State aid. Detailed economic analysis, which was not considered by the court (but which is essential to any consideration of alleged State aid), confirms that Wizz Air’s arrangements at Timisoara Airport are fully compliant with the Market Economy Investor Principle, and is further confirmed by the airport’s continuing profitability. Wizz Air also notes that the charges the subject of the perverse ruling are not even discriminatory – they were available to all airlines operating at Timisoara airport. Wizz Air has significantly contributed to Timisoara Airport’s success over the last 4 years. Passenger traffic grew from initially 300,000 to well over 1 million this year with almost all that increase being attributable to Wizz Air passengers. Wizz Air is confident that the European Commission will find that Wizz Air’s dealings with Timisoara are perfectly justified and genuine commercial arrangements. While the formal judgment has not yet been issued, Wizz Air is confident that the dissenting judgment of one of the judges will expose the flawed reasoning.

Daniel de Carvalho, Corporate Communications Manager at Wizz Air, said: “We believe that the only real recipient of State aid at Timisoara Airport is, in fact, Carpatair which benefits from vastly cheaper charges for transfer passengers, which account for over 75% of Carpatair’s traffic through Timisoara. These discounted charges, applicable to the majority of Carpatair’s traffic, relate to passengers that do not add any value to the Timisoara region. Wizz Air passengers contribute far more to the airport’s ancillary revenue and to the entire region, yet pay substantially higher passenger charges when compared with Carpatair’s ridiculously low and unjustifiable transfer charges. Today we call on Carpatair to correct its false claims and start paying the same airport charges at Timisoara Airport as Wizz Air does.”