Wizz Air stats continue to rise as airline expands network further

Central and Eastern Europe-focussed low cost carrier Wizz Air Holdings described another month of expansion as it issued its traffic statistics for November on Tuesday.

The FTSE 250 airline said its capacity for the month totalled 2.44 million seats, up 19.9% on the same time last year, while total booked passengers reached 2.16 million - a 22% improvement.

Its load factor for the month was 88.3%, up 1.5 percentage points.

On a rolling 12-month basis, capacity to 30 November rose 21.1% to 30.51 million and booked passengers were up 24.4% to 27.9 million, while load factor improved 2.5 percentage points to 91.4%.

During the month, Wizz further expanded its network with 22 new routes announced - 10 were to and from Poland, five to Romania, five to the UK and two to Ukraine.

It expanded further in the UK with the acquisition of additional slots and stands from the recently-defunct Monarch Airlines at Luton Airport north of London, taking the total number of aircraft based there to seven in 2018.

The Wizz fleet also expanded in November, with the delivery of a brand new Airbus A321ceo aircraft, taking the fleet number to a total of 87.

“[Our] growth plans and cost position to 2026 [were] further strengthened with an order of an additional 146 Airbus A320neo family aircraft,” the board said in its statement.