Wizz Air traffic rises but load factor hit by Israel disruption

Low-cost airline Wizz Air saw an acceleration in passenger growth in February but its load factors remained firmly below last year as a result of reallocated flights from Israel and ongoing issues related to the Pratt & Whitney GTF engine recall.

The Europe-focused carrier said it carried 4.39 passengers last month, a 15.8% increase on February 2023 and higher than the 14.2% annual growth registered in January.

However, the load factor – a key measure of profitability in aviation that measures how full planes are – came in at just 90%, down 3.3 percentage points on the year before

"The February load factor continued to be impacted by reallocated Israel capacity and more flown capacity than anticipated, as some of the aircraft groundings related to the mandatory GTF engine inspections occurred later than expected," Wizz Air explained in a statement.

The company had announced that it would restart operations into Tel Aviv from the beginning of March, reopening routes from Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Krakow, London and Rome. It had already reinstated flights between Aqaba in Jordan and Abu Dhabi at the start of February.

At the time of its third-quarter results in January, Wizz Air said it was maintaining its income targets for the year ending 31 March in spite of the disruption in the Middle East, with trading in the fourth quarter starting positively.

The stock was down 0.6% at 2,221p in early trading on Monday.