Take-off from Liverpool John Lennon Airport, Wizzair, Airbus A320, 19.07.2013, 08:10am Liverpool John Lennon Airport (IATA: LPL, ICAO: EGGP) is an international airport serving the North West of England. Formerly known as Speke Airport, RAF Speke, and Liverpool Airport the airport is within the City of Liverpool on the estuary of the River Mersey some 6.5 nautical miles (12.0 km; 7.5 mi) southeast of the city centre. The airport is named after Liverpudlian musician John Lennon of The Beatles. It has some domestic services and scheduled flights to locations across Europe. Between 1997 and 2007 it was one of Europe's fastest growing airports, increasing annual passenger numbers from 689,468 in 1997 to 5.47 million in 2007. Passenger numbers have since fallen and around 4.5 million passengers passed through the airport in 2012, making it the tenth busiest airport in the United Kingdom. It has a CAA Public Use Aerodrome Licence (Number P735) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers and for flying instruction. Wizz Air Hungary Airlines Ltd. (Hungarian: Wizz Air Hungary Légiközlekedési Kft.) is a Hungarian low-cost airline with its head office on the property of Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport in Budapest. The airline typically uses secondary airports serving many cities across Europe and the Middle East. It has the largest aircraft fleet of all the Hungarian airlines. Wizz Air currently serves 32 countries across Europe and the Middle East, and in the second half of 2013 plans to expand into Dubai, Moldova and Russia. The airline was established in September 2003. The lead investor is Indigo Partners, an American private equity firm specialising in transportation investments. The first flight was made from Katowice on 19 May 2004, 19 days after Poland and Hungary entered the European Union and the single European aviation market. The airline carried 250,000 passengers in its first three and a half months, and almost 1.4 million passengers in the first year of operations. In 2007, Wizz Air carried 2.9 million passengers on its Polish routes. The airline's CEO and chairman is József Váradi, former CEO of Malév Hungarian Airlines. The company is registered in Pest County (Hungary) with operating subsidiaries in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. Wizz Air Bulgaria was established in September 2005. Váradi won the Ernst & Young award of the 'Brave Innovator' in 2007. In 2011, Wizz Air carried 11 million passengers (15% more than in 2010), including 4.2 million passengers on Polish routes (only 2% more than in 2010). In recent years Wizz stopped developing its network of connections from Poland and opened new bases in Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Lithuania and Serbia. However, Poland is still the largest capital market for Wizz Air.