Wizz Air sees Q3 revenues jump despite cancelled Israel flights

(Sharecast News) - Low-cost airline Wizz Air saw a solid increase in capacity in its fiscal third quarter despite having to cancel flights due to the unfolding geopolitical crisis in Israel. Wizz Air cancelled 6% of its planned capacity for the third quarter in early October, though affected capacity was redeployed across the network. Travel to the nearby markets of Jordan and Egypt also had to be partially redeployed, accounting for additional 3% of redeployed capacity.

Available seat kilometres (ASK), the airline industry's standard measure of capacity, improved by 26.9% year-on-year in the three months to 31 December, but revenues per ASK fell by 8% to €3.43 due to lower ticket revenue and extra capacity added in the period. However, load factor improved by 0.3 percentage points to 87.6%.

As a result, passenger ticket revenue increased by 19.2% to €553.9m.

"More recently and following a comprehensive security analysis Wizz Air is restarting operations into Israel with a routes from Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Krakow, London, Rome to Tel Aviv from beginning of March," the company said.



EBITDA totalled €18.7m for the quarter, compared with a EBITDA loss of €2.8m in the third quarter the year before. However, higher expenses and a lower net foreign exchange gain compared with last year resulted in an operating loss of €105.4m, after a profit of €33.5m before.

"At the beginning of the quarter we faced geopolitical crises in Israel and the Middle East and have responded by cancelling affected flights to protect our passengers, employees, assets and general public," said chief executive József Váradi. "Despite the associated flight cancellations and redeployment of capacity at short notice, we managed operations well, delivering improved on-time performance and significantly better utilisation, year-on-year."

Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Váradi said trading has been "positive", as the company pointed to a 15% increase in capacity year-on-year and a load factor of above 90%, in line with guidance given at the half-year stage.