Wizz Air expands into Austria as passenger numbers soar 24%

Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air saw January passenger numbers increase 24.4% year-on-year to 2.33m, but the load factor, a measuring tool generally used to assess how efficiently a transport provider fills seats and generates fare revenue, declined 0.3% to 87.7%.

Wizz was set to expand its network to Austria, naming Vienna as the airline's 145th European airport.

The new runway slots in the Austrian capital meant Wizz would see itself enter into a 44th European nation.

Wizz Air, already the largest low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe, also revealed that it was placing three brand new Airbus A320 family aircraft into its fleet and opening 17 new routes to 15 countries from June 2018.

As of 0920 GMT, shares had lost 1.75% to 3,368.00p.