Wizz Air passenger numbers up 21% in March

Eastern Europe-focused low cost carrier Wizz Air reported another month of sizeable passenger growth for March, as it expanded its network and customer offering even further.

The Hungary-based airline saw a total of 1,660,061 passengers take to the skies in its pink-hued planes in March, up 20.8% on the 1,374,272 that did so in March 2015.

At the same time, the total number of seats it had available grew 19.5% to 1,923,620 from 1,610,280. That made for a load factor of 86.3% in March, compared with 85.3% a year earlier.

On a rolling 12 month basis, passenger numbers were up 21.2% in the year to 31 March compared with the prior year, while capacity was up 19.2%. The airline’s load factor in the year to 31 March was 88.2%, up from 86.7%.

March also saw the arrival of Wizz Air’s third and fourth A321ceo aircraft from Airbus, adding to its Budapest base and taking total fleet numbers to 67.

It also launched nine new routes - six to Lithuania, as well as new services to Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia.