Wizz Air Q1 losses widen but summer recovery expected
Wizz Air Holdings
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13:50 24/04/24
Wizz Air posted a widening of its losses for the first quarter as it continues to be hit by pandemic restrictions, but struck an upbeat note on summer capacity.
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In the three months to 30 June, the airline’s loss widened to €114m from €108m in the first quarter of last year, while the underlying net loss came in at €118.7m compared to €56.7m.
Revenue increased 119.2% to €199m and the number of passengers rose 317.7% to 2.95m.
Wizz said the first quarter remained challenging as it operated only 33% of its capacity due to Covid restrictions. However, in July and August, it expects to operate around 90% and 100% of its 2019 capacity, respectively. This would make Wizz the first major European airline to fully recover capacity to pre-Covid-19 levels.
Chief executive Jozsef Varadi said: "Through the quarter we did see encouraging recovery patterns in passenger air travel. People began returning to flying despite mobility restrictions still impacting travel.
"We have now entered a busy part of the summer, ramping up our operations to meet increased demand whilst maintaining operational flexibility to deal with evolving travel restrictions as a result of Covid-19 developments, particularly with respect to new variants."