Wizz Air December passenger numbers soar 18%

Low cost airline Wizz Air reported a 18.3% year-on-year rise in December passenger numbers to 2.66m as capacity rose 16.5% to 2.99m seats.

The load factor, which guages how full aircraft are, rose to 88.8% from 87.5%.

The central and eastern European-focused airline said it had expanded its network with 14 new routes to-from the UK, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, adding that it was increasing its fleet at Luton in Bedfordshire, England to 11 aircraft from nine.

It was also expanding in Bulgaria with a second aircraft to be deployed in Varna from summer 2019.

The delivery of an additional new Airbus A321 would taking Wizz Air's current fleet to 106 aircraft, Wizz said.