New Low Cost Airline Takes to the Skies
Centralwings, Poland’s newest low cost airline will fly into London, Gatwick for the first time on February 1, as the airline launches into the UK market.Initially offering flights from Okecie airport in Warsaw and Krakow’s Balice airport, UK travellers will be offered the chance to fly to two of the hottest up-and coming destinations in Europe for as little as £4.50 each way (excluding tax and charges)
Central wings, owned by LOT Polish Airlines will be operating daily flights 6 days a week (Sunday - Friday) from Warsaw to Kracow to London Gatwick. The new route is the first to launch and aims to offer its passengers ‘a new low cost, reliable and friendly service for people who have grown to expect more for less’.
Flights will be operated on a fleet of 5 boeing 737s. Centralwings is planning to expand its network to offer additional flights from Warsaw to Hanover as well as the regular flights from Krakow, and Katowice to more than 13 destinations across Europe. Charter flights will also be operated from Poznan and Wroclaw.
During a press conference, Piotr Kociolek, Centralwings’s President commented: “We want to make the world closer to those people who want to reach their destination places in a cheap, reliable and friendly way and are willing to take the chance to get to know interesting places and people as well as to spend their free time in a creative way”. He added: We are conscious of expectations and hopes that have Centralwings passengers and sympathizers. Our goal is to be a national, low cost airlines for people who expect low price and reliability guaranteed by PLL LOT”
As part of the Centralwings business strategy, the airline has signed a marketing agreement with the German low cost airline Germanwings. Centralwings and Germanwings will cooperate on routes between Poland and Germany to try and achieve leadership in the low-cost air traffic market between these markets. The collaboration will cover the area of sales and marketing in particular.
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Both airlines expect to see synergies through common marketing activities in third countries and in the joint purchase of services at airports abroad. Both Germanwings and Centralwings will provide information to the other carrier as well as the ability to view information and book flights on each others networks.
“Germanwings is a perfect example of the successful launch of a European budget airline” continued Piotre. “For this reason we have decided to follow a similar business model so that Centralwings can also aim to be making a profit within our first two years of operations.”
Germanwings and Centralwings will share the same reservation system and IT centre to achieve even further economies of scale for their operations.
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