Wizz Air sees more growth as annual profit soars

Eastern European-focused budget airline Wizz Air reported a 67 per cent jump in annual profit and said it was confident of further profit growth this year as it continues to expand capacity.

In its first results as a London-listed company, Wizz Air said underlying net profit came in at €146 million in the twelve months ended March 31, compared to the €87 million it made in the previous period.

For its 2016 financial year, Wizz, which was launched 11 years ago by a small group of Hungarian airline executives and floated in February, guided to post-tax profit in the range of between €165 million and €175 million.

Wizz said profit growth last year was driven by expanding its network and capacity across its key central and Eastern Europe area, at the same time as lowering costs, and the same tactic would help drive profit in the coming year.

Wizz, which carried 16.5 million passengers last year, is dwarfed by Europe's largest low-cost airline Ryanair, which had 91 million passengers.

Ryanair on Tuesday forecast a 10 per cent rise in profit and passenger numbers in the current financial year.

For the current year, Wizz said trading was robust, but it did not expect there to be an earnings benefit from the decline in fuel prices as lower fuel prices would feed through to lower air fares.

Ryanair guided to falls of between 0 per cent and 2 per cent in fares in the six months to September, while Europe’s no.2 low-cost airline easyJet said it expected a 4 per cent drop in revenue per seat in the three months to June.

Shares in Wizz closed at 1,465 pence on Tuesday, giving the company a market capitalisation of about £760 million (€1.07 billion).

Reuters