WIZZ Air, the latest addition to Europe's growing fleet of budget airlines, plans to start operations in May, to coincide with EU enlargement into central Europe, with nine leased Airbus A320 planes.

In a statement on Thursday, the Anglo-Hungarian low-cost carrier said Lufthansa Technik would carry out maintenance work on the planes.

Budget airlines are taking off across central Europe, where treaties protecting national carriers must be scrapped as most of the region's countries enter the European Union on May 1.

WIZZ Air, headed by Jozsef Varadi, former chief executive of Hungary's national carrier Malev, will start flying from its base in Katowice, southern Poland, but also plans to fly out of Budapest later in May.

Varadi said late last year that WIZZ Air expected to carry up to two million passengers in its first year, and would probably add 10 planes a year to its fleet in its first five years of operation.

WIZZ Air said it expected to agree soon with US and European institutional investors to increase its initial USD$3 million capital by a further USD$40-60 million.

(Reuters)