Wizz Air March passenger numbers take off

Wizz Air on Thursday reported a 19% month-on-month rise in growth in passenger numbers to 3.28m.

The FTSE 250 low-cost airline attributed the improvement to a 17.6% increase in its capacity to 3.57m seats. It also recorded a 1.1 percentage point year-on-year rise in its load factor to 91.9%.

On a rolling 12-month basis, Wizz Air’s capacity was up 14.9% over the prior year in the 12 months ended 31 March, at 37.8m, while its passenger numbers were ahead 16.7% to 35.09m.

That made for a load factor of 92.8% for the 12 month period, which was 1.4 percentage points higher than in the year ended 31 March 2018.

Wizz Air also highlighted the ongoing expansion of its route network in the month, with eight new routes announced to the likes of Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Ukraine.

The company’s fleet also continued to expand, with the delivery of a brand new Airbus 321ceo aircraft which will be deployed at Wizz Air's new Krakow base from May 2019, taking the fleet to 113 aircraft.

Wizz Air also pointed out its continued improvement in operational performance with only four cancelled flights during April and a year-on-year improvement in on-time performance to 81%.

As of 0825 BST, Wizz shares had ticked up 0.60% to 3,455p.