Smooth landing for Wizz Air as profits soar

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Wizz Air has cut its targets for annual profit as issues with its GTF engines, supplied by Pratt & Whitney, continue to impact capacity.
Wizz Air has cut its targets for annual profit as issues with its GTF engines, supplied by Pratt & Whitney, continue to impact capacity.

Budget airline Wizz Air carried more passengers and squeezed more money from them, its first quarter results show.

Profit for the three months to 30 June was €72.4m (£66.22m), boosted by passenger growth of 20.1 per cent to just over 10m people flying with the airline.

Ancillary revenue, that’s all the extras that you pay for along with your ticket from baggage and priority boarding, to snacks and seat reservations, jumped 41.1 per cent to €311.4m.

That nearly matched ticket revenue, which increased 14.8% to €379.3m.

Load factor, a measure of how full the average Wizz Air flight is, increased to 93.7 per cent from 92.1 per cent for the same period last year.

Shares in London took off following the results, up just over four per cent to 3,751p.

Airline boss József Váradi was pleased with the stats and said: “This performance was achieved in the face of higher fuel prices through our continued and rigorous cost management and strength in both Easter trading and ancillary revenue generation”.

For the full year, Wizz Air is forecasting net profit in the range of €320m-€350m.