Wizz Air’s losses widen as soaring fuel prices hit low-cost carrier’s profitability
Hungarian airline Wizz Air today said soaring fuel prices had caused its losses to more than triple over the previous year.
The budget airline said surging commodity prices and an unfavourable exchange rate had seen the price it pays for jet fuel double, as it posed losses of €384.4m (£330.6m) for the second quarter of 2022.
The losses come after Wizz Air said it had carried twice as many passengers in Q2 2022 than in the second quarter of last year.
The low-cost carrier’s passenger numbers increased 112 per cent, from 12.5m in Q2 2021 to 26.5m in Q2 2022.
The doubling of Wizz Air’s passengers saw the airline’s revenues increase 149.2 per cent to €2.19bn (£1.88bn).
However, the uptick in passenger numbers failed to boost Wizz Air’s profitability, as the airline saw its reported losses for the increase 217.9 per cent to €384.4m.
Wizz Air’s losses came as a result higher commodity costs that saw the airline’s fuel prices quadruple, to more than €1bn in the Q3 2022 alone.
The unfavourable Euro to US dollar exchange rate also added to Wizz Air’s fuel costs, as the firm paid average prices of $1,279.4 per tonne for fuel in Q3 2022, compared to $656 over the same period last year.