Wizz Air to beat expectations despite Omicron and Ukraine war

Wizz Air thinks it has done better than previously expected in the last three months of the year despite suspending flights to and from Ukraine, Russia and Moldova.

The Hungarian airline, which is listed in London, said that it expects to report an operating loss of around 190 million euros to 210 million euros (£158m to £175m) in the final quarter of its financial year.

Less than three months ago, the airline had warned the emergence of Omicron and new travel restrictions would weigh on demand for flights.

It had therefore forecast that operating loss would be slightly higher than the 213.6 million euros (£178m) that it reported in the previous quarter.

The business said on Thursday it is still monitoring the situation in Ukraine and the planes that used to fly there and to Russia and Moldova were now being used on different routes.

It is ramping up for the summer season and expects to fly more than in 2019 before the pandemic struck.

It measures this by available seat kilometres, a measure which multiplies the number of seats on a plane with the number of kilometres it flies.

Between April and June, Wizz expects to fly 30% more available seat kilometres than it did in 2019, and 40% more between July and September.

Bookings will increase after Easter and recent demand has been encouraging, the airline said.

Chief executive Jozsef Varadi said: “In the 2022 financial year the aviation industry continued to be impacted by Covid-19.

“The latest virus variant, Omicron, proved to be of benign nature, which helped to relax government travel restrictions across a majority of our network.

“Distressingly, the war in Ukraine dented demand for air travel and destabilised commodity prices across the globe.

“Despite these developments we are starting to see recovery take shape as we move closer to the summer of 2022.”

Shares in Wizz were up nearly 7% on Thursday morning.