Money Buzz! Europa

Category: Infrastructure

  • Wizz Air reopens all bases in Romania

    Wizz Air reopens all bases in Romania

    Wizz Air has reopened its bases in Sibiu, Timișoara and Craiova and all eight Romanian locations are operational.

    Passengers can book flights on a total of 35 routes. Flights to these countries have also been resumed from the other bases and airport Wizz Air operates from in Romania.

    Wizz Air routes from Romania

    CityDestinations
    BucharestBasel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, Lisbon, Oslo Torp, Geneva, Billund, Malmo, Dortmund, Nurnberg, Stockholm Skavsta, Tel-Aviv
    Cluj-NapocaVienna, Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, Dortmund, Berlin Schonefeld, Memmingen, Frankfurt-Hahn, Nurnberg, Malmo, Billund
    TimișoaraDortmund, Karlsruhe Baden-Baden, Memmingen, Frankfurt-Hahn
    IașiDortmund, Larnaca, Billund
    SibiuDortmund, Karlsruhe Baden-Baden, Memmingen, Frankfurt-Hahn, Nurnberg
    CraiovaCologne
    SuceavaMemmingen
    Târgu MureșMemmingen, Budapest

    HEPA filters of all Wizz Air aircraft filter out 99.97% of viruses and bacteria from the air within the cabin, the crew as well as passengers are required to wear masks throughout the flight.

    Cabin crew distribute sanitizing wipes to each passenger, while the removal of onboard magazines and the encouragement of contactless payment during onboard purchases are measures introduced to minimize physical contact. 

  • Conduent Transportation launched the new ticketing system for Brescia Mobilità

    Conduent Transportation launched the new ticketing system for Brescia Mobilità

    Conduent Transportation announced the successful implementation of a new account-based ticketing system for Brescia Mobilità’s light metro transit network in northern Italy.

    Each day, approximately 50.000 people use the Brescia Metro system.

    The company launched the new system allowing riders to access the service using major contactless credit and debit cards, including Mastercard, Visa, American Express, VPay, Visa Electron and Maestro.

    NFC-enabled devices, such as smartphones and smart watches with digital wallets, such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay, can also be used.

    With account-based ticketing (ABT), the ticket is not stored on a device or other media, such as a smartphone or smart card, but in the cloud.

    Installed in just under three months between October and December 2019, the new system provides riders with an additional payment option, along with traditional ticket machines located in each metro station.

    Riders can also use Mobile Ticket, a digital ticket that can be purchased via text message or “BresciApp!”.

    This project follows a contract Brescia Mobilità awarded Conduent earlier in 2019 to upgrade its fare collection with Conduent’s ATLAS system on its 200 buses and light metro subway.

  • Enel Green Power starts construction of wind farm expansion in U.S.

    Enel Green Power starts construction of wind farm expansion in U.S.

    Enel Green Power started construction on the 199 MW expansion of the Cimarron Bend wind farm in Clark County, Kansas.

    The expansion, consisting of 74 turbines, will increase the wind farm’s capacity to 599 MW from the current 400 MW, making it the largest wind farm in Enel’s North American portfolio.

    Construction, which will involve an investment of over 281 million US dollars, is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

    Cimarron Bend’s first two phases entered into service in 2016 and 2017, involving an overall investment of over 891 million US dollars

    Upon completion of the 199 MW addition, Cimarron Bend will generate a total of more than 2.7 TWh per year, equivalent to avoiding 1.8 million tons of CO2 emissions.

    The electricity from a 150 MW portion of the expansion is being sold under a 15-year bundled power purchase agreement (PPA) with electric services company Evergy.

    In January, Evergy committed to reducing carbon emissions 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.

    Across the US and Canada, Enel Green Power is constructing nearly 1 GW of new wind and solar capacity in 2020. Other Enel Green Power construction projects include the 245 MW second phase of the Roadrunner solar project in Texas, the 236.5 MW White Cloud wind project in Missouri and the 299 MW Aurora wind project in North Dakota.

  • Wizz Air 31st base to open in Bacau, Romania

    Wizz Air 31st base to open in Bacau, Romania

    Wizz Air announced its 31 base in Bacău. The airline will base 2 Airbus A320 aircraft at Bacău Airport in October 2020. 

    Along with the establishment of the new base, Wizz Air announced 12 new services to 6 countries from Bacău starting from 29 October 2020.

    This is the company’s 7 base in Romania and the 2nd in the historical Moldavia region in Romania, besides Iași.

    Tickets for all new routes can already be booked as low as RON 89.

    The base establishment in Bacău will create over 70 new direct jobs with the airline and even more jobs in associated industries. 

    The 2 Airbus A320 aircraft will support the operations of 12 new routes to: Turin, Venice Treviso, Bologna, Rome Fiumicino, Milan Bergamo, Catania (Italy), Larnaca (Cyprus), London Luton, Liverpool (UK), Memmingen/Munich West (Germany), Billund (Denmark), Brussels Charleroi (Belgium).

    Wizz Air’s extensive network of 37 routes to the Moldavia region in Romania- including 18 routes to Iasi and 7 routes to Suceava.

  • Wizz Air, massive expansion of its Belgrade base

    Wizz Air, massive expansion of its Belgrade base

    Wizz Air announced a massive expansion of its Serbian operations, adding one new Airbus A321 aircraft to the Belgrade base as well as converting the other two based aircraft to Airbus A321 from August 2020.

    The new aircraft will join the fleet in July 2020, which will grow the local Belgrade fleet to three aircraft.

    In July 2020, Wizz Air will launch 9 new routes from Belgrade to: Hamburg, Cologne, Friedrichshafen (Germany), Brussels Charleroi (Belgium), Milan Malpensa (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), Barcelona El Prat (Spain), Oslo Sandefjord Torp (Norway), Turku (Finland).

    Tickets for all new routes can already be booked from as low as BGN 37.99.

    First Wizz flight from Serbia departed in 2010

    Belgrade was one of the first airports in the SEE region for Wizz Air with flights to Dortmund and London.

    Wizz Air now offers 28 routes to 16 countries from 2 Serbian airports: 23 routes from Belgrade and 5 routes from Niš.

    The conversion of the entire Belgrade fleet to A321 operations would mean an annual capacity of 1,31 million seats on sale from Belgrade.

  • Ryanair, 26 routes from Dusseldorf and Stuttgart starting July 1st

    Ryanair, 26 routes from Dusseldorf and Stuttgart starting July 1st

    Ryanair announced 26 routes from Dusseldorf and Stuttgart starting from July 1st.

    This routes include sunshine holidays to Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro & Spain, city breaks including Barcelona, Bologna, Copenhagen & Naples and business routes including Dublin, Milan & London.

    1000’s of seats from €29.99, are now available for booking until midnight Friday (19th Jun) for travel in July and August.  

    Speaking today, Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson said: ”Ryanair is delighted to offer its low, low fares from Dusseldorf and Stuttgart on 26 routes, including brand new routes from Dusseldorf to Barcelona, Dublin and London and from Stuttgart to Barcelona.”

    Lauda will no longer offer scheduled services from Stuttgart and Dusseldorf

    Lauda, a Ryanair Group airline, will no longer offer scheduled services in its own name from Stuttgart and Dusseldorf. 

    Lauda customers who have booked flights to/from Stuttgart or Dusseldorf in July, Aug & Sept will be transferred free of charge to Ryanair flights on the same routes and the same day. 

    Customers who have booked Lauda flights to/from Stuttgart or Dusseldorf on different days to the Ryanair flights may also change to the Ryanair flight free of charge by using their Laudamotion reservation on Ryanair.com.

    All affected Lauda customers will be issued with an email notice of these changes today to advise them of their options.

  • Electricity from braking energy illuminates subway stations in Vienna

    Electricity from braking energy illuminates subway stations in Vienna

    After the successful pilot trial started in 2018, a second inverter system was put into operation at the U1 station Altes Landgut.

    There are two ”Brake Energy” plants: one in the U2 station Hardeggasse and one in the U1 station Altes Landgut.

    Data show that these power plants can “brake” around 3 gigawatt hours of electricity per year. This corresponds to the electricity consumption of an average of 720 households and saves around 400 tons of CO2.

    How the subways function as small power plants

    It happens thousands of times a day: whenever a subway stops in a station, braking energy is released.

    Much of the energy generated is re-fed and drives other approaching trains. But what to do if there is no train in the station at the same time?

    Until a few years ago, the resulting energy remained unused and was converted into heat.

    Thanks to the “Brake Energy” project, however, this energy can be recycled: If there is no other train in the station, the excess braking energy is fed into the 20kV alternating current network of the Vienna lines.

    Escalators, elevators and lighting are supplied with recycled electricity in stations.

    Next plant planned for U4 station Ober St. Veit

    “In the future, four more plants are to be built. The next plant is planned for 2021 at the U4 station Ober St. Veit,” announces Günter Steinbauer, Managing Director of Wiener Linien.

    One third of Vienna’s rail vehicles run with CO2-free electricity

    Already one third of Vienna’s rail vehicles are powered by recycled electricity.

    As a pilot project, photovoltaic films were installed for the first time at the Ottakring station in autumn 2019, which supplies 50 percent of the entire station with solar power at peak times.

    Thanks to the resource-saving use of energy, the Vienna lines are responsible for only one percent of Vienna’s CO2 emissions.

  • Austria: New passenger car registrations down by one third in May

    Austria: New passenger car registrations down by one third in May

    In May 2020, the total number of new motor vehicle registrations was 32 224, representing a decrease of 23.4% compared to May 2019.

    New passenger car registrations (20 211) decreased by 33.9%, as Statistics Austria reports. Passenger cars accounted for 62.7% of all new motor vehicle registrations.

    Registrations of new electric cars rose by 5.2% (share: 3.6%). Increases were also reported for petrol hybrids (+83.8%; share 9.7%) and diesel hybrids (+40.2%; share 1.9%).

    Registrations of new petrol-powered passenger cars decreased by 41.6% (share: 47.7%), those of diesel cars declined by 37.8% (share: 36.7%).

    All makes among the top 10 passenger cars recorded declines: Opel -45.5%, Skoda -41.8%, VW -41.0%, Ford -36.7%, Seat -33.8%, Hyundai -32.3%, Audi -32.2%, Renault -29.6%, Mercedes -22.5% and BMW -19.8%.

    The market for new commercial vehicles showed decreases for tractors used for agriculture and forestry (-5.4%), lorries category (cat.) N3 (-24.1%), lorries cat. N1 (-27.7%), lorries cat. N2 (-43.5%) and articulated lorries (-67.7%).

    For two-wheelers, much more registrations for new motorcycles (+32.1%) and scooters (+63.8%) were recorded.

    January to May 2020: new passenger cars -39.9%; new motor vehicles -35.8%

    From January to May 2020, the number of new passenger car registrations decreased by 39.9% to 86 111 – 57 269 vehicles fewer than in the same period of 2019.

    The total number of newly registered motor vehicles declined by 35.8% to 123 804.

  • Luxembourg has the most cars per inhabitant in the EU

    Luxembourg has the most cars per inhabitant in the EU

    Among EU Member States, Luxembourg recorded the highest ’motorisation rate’ with 676 passenger cars per 1.000 inhabitants in 2018, Eurostat data shows.

    However, cross-border workers using company cars registered in the country may influence this figure.

    Luxembourg was followed by Italy (646 cars), Cyprus and Finland (both 629 cars). In contrast, the lowest rates were recorded in Romania (332 cars), Latvia (369 cars) and Hungary (373 cars).

    In 2018, the highest number of registered passenger cars was recorded in Germany with 47 million cars. Thereafter followed Italy (39 million cars) and France (32 million cars).

    From 2014 to 2018, Romania had the strongest growth in the number of registered passenger cars

    Romania (31%) was followed by Czechia, Slovakia and Lithuania (each 19%), Hungary and Portugal (both 17%) and Cyprus (15%).

    Poland has the ”oldest” cars in EU

    Several EU Member States reported a large share of ’old’ passenger cars (20 years or older) in 2018. The Member States with the highest shares were Poland (36.5%), Estonia (29.6%), Finland (25.2%), Romania (21.4%) and Malta (20.8%).

    By contrast, the shares of the ’youngest’ passenger cars (less than 2 years old) were highest in Ireland (29.2%), Luxembourg (23.8%), Denmark (23.3%) and Belgium (23.1%).

  • Air Dolomiti resumes flights to Frankfurt and Munich

    Air Dolomiti resumes flights to Frankfurt and Munich

    Air Dolomiti, the Italian airline of the Lufthansa Group restarts operations and confirms flights from Italian cities to Munich and Frankfurt am Main. 

    A partial resumption of operations to Germany with more weekly frequencies is scheduled for June 15.

    Air Dolomiti will guarantee flights from Florence, Venice and Turin to Munich and from Verona and Turin to Frankfurt. The Company will also operate flights from Venice and Bologna to Frankfurt on behalf of Lufthansa.

    The latter two will be added to the route Milan Malpensa-Frankfurt, which has also been active in the past months to guarantee a minimum service between Italy and Germany.

    Air Dolomiti’s project is to increase the frequencies and destinations week after week in order to progressively return to normal. 

  • Two new routes for Wizz Air from Bulgaria starting July 17

    Two new routes for Wizz Air from Bulgaria starting July 17

    Wizz Air announced new routes, Sofia – Frankfurt and Varna – Prague, starting on July 17, 2020.

    This flights will be performed twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Seats on both routes are on sale and can be booked at wizzair.com.

    As part of these new pandemic protocols, both the cabin crew and passengers are required to wear face masks throughout the flight, and the cabin crew must also wear gloves.

    Wizz Air will provide disinfectant wipes to each passenger when boarding the aircraft, magazines on board are removed and passengers are encouraged to make all purchases on board by contactless payment.

    They are required to follow physical distance measures put in place by local health authorities and are encouraged to make their booking entirely online (including check-in, baggage purchase or Wizz priority) to minimize any possible physical contact at the airport.

  • Meridiam and Munich Airport awarded concession of Sofia Airport

    Meridiam and Munich Airport awarded concession of Sofia Airport

    The Supreme Administrative Court of Bulgaria upheld the decision of the Commission for Protection of Competition of 14 November 2019 confirming the selection of Meridiam and its partner Munich Airport as concessionaire for Sofia Airport by the Ministry of Transport.

    The investment embedded in this 35-year long-term public-private partnership will contribute to Bulgaria´s economic rebound post Covid-19 crisis.

    The airport will develop new standards of carbon accreditation and environmental standards – serving as benchmark for other airports and industries aiming at becoming an enabler of social, economic, environmental and inclusive growth that contributes to Sofia and Bulgaria.

    With a proven experience in the airport sector and an existing portfolio of landmark airports including LaGuardia Central Terminal (New York, USA), Queen Alia International (Jordan) or Ivato and Nosy Bé (Madagascar), Meridiam intends to set the ground for a sustainable success story with the new Sofia Airport.

    Munich Airport will provide all its knowledge, expertise, best practices and market outreach, especially in terms of airline marketing, route development, passenger experience, smart airport development, airport city development and operational efficiency.