Wizz Air expands to Santiago, adds Modlin link

Wizz Air is moving ahead with its permanent base at Santiago de Compostela Airport, opening on 1 February 2027. The base will launch ten new routes—including domestic links to Zaragoza, Valencia, Bilbao, Málaga, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and international services to Rome, Warsaw and Madrid—providing roughly 900 000 seats between October 2026 and October 2027.

A direct twice‑weekly flight (Tuesdays and Saturdays) from Warsaw‑Modlin to Santiago will start on 1 December 2026, aimed at the growing number of Polish pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago and eliminating the need for hub transfers.

From the same February start, Wizz will operate about 100 monthly flights to the Canary Islands (Tenerife‑North, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura) using Airbus A321neo aircraft with 239 seats and fares from €29.99. The service will compete with regional carrier Binter, which runs 100 monthly flights on the same routes with 132‑seat E195‑E2 aircraft and receives no public subsidies. Galician authorities say any aid will be limited to international routes and no tender has been announced for the new Wizz services.

The expansion follows Ryanair’s 2025 decision to close its base at the airport and its 2026 withdrawal from the Lavacolla and Vigo airports, prompting concerns that the added routes could duplicate existing services and strain airport coordination. Regional governments continue to debate the optimal balance between new capacity and existing air‑traffic needs.

Wizz Air also projects a network of 1,000 European routes by 2026, carrying around 70 million passengers annually with a modern, lower‑emission fleet.