Leeds Bradford will become a new point on the Wizz Air route map following the closure of Doncaster Sheffield Airport. Wizz Air has confirmed that seven routes which are operated from Doncaster Sheffield (DSA) will move to Leeds Bradford (LBA) from the start of the 2022/23 winter season.
The move comes after Peel Group, which owns Doncaster Sheffield, announced it was closing the northern England airport after struggling to secure what it called a "critical mass" of airline passengers. Doncaster Airport will close from 31 October 2022.
Wizz services to Doncaster Sheffield will operate as planned until 30 October before moving to Leeds Bradford the following day. These include flights from Gdansk (GDN), Katowice ( KTW ), Krakow ( KRK ), Warsaw ( WAW ) and Wroclaw (WRO) in Poland, as well as Bucharest (OTP) and Cluj-Napoca (CLJ) in Romania.
However, flights to Doncaster Sheffield from Vilnius ( VNO ) will cease. Ryanair already serves the Lithuanian capital from Leeds Bradford.
Doncaster Sheffield, which served 1,4 million passengers in 2019, first opened in 2005 by redeveloping the runway and facilities of the former RAF Finningley.
Wizz Air has served DSA for the past 16 years and has become its largest operator, accounting for almost 50% of capacity in 2019. OAG figures show that the ULCC provided around 367.000 departure seats during the year.
However, in June 2022 ULCC axed a large number of routes from the airport, prompting a strategic review in which Peel said no "tangible proposals" had been received to own the airport or address what he calls "fundamental lack of financial viability".