2nd Oct 2019 08:49
(Alliance News) - Budget airlines Ryanair Holdings PLC and Wizz Air Holdings PLC on Wednesday both reported a rise in passenger traffic in September, compared to a year before.
Ryanair said group traffic rose by 7.6% to 14.1 million from 13.1 million reported in September last year. The result includes 600,000 passengers carried by Laudamotion.
In July last year, Ryanair acquired the remaining 75% interest in Austrian airline Laudamotion GmbH.
Excluding Laudamotion, Ryanair's traffic grew 7.1% to 13.5 million customers in September.
On a rolling annual basis, Ryanair traffic rose 10% to 150.3 million from 136.8 million.
Ryanair's load factor was 96% in September, the same as its rolling annual figure.
Meanwhile, rival Wizz Air said it continued to grow its network and improve its customer offering.
The Hungarian carrier increased capacity, measured in available seat kilometres, by 20% to 4.0 million from 3.4 million a year prior. Load factor advanced by 0.5 percentage point to 94.5%.
Wizz Air carried a total number of 3.8 million passengers in September, which was up 20% year-on-year from 3.2 million. The group's traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose by 23% to 6.3 million from 5.1 million reported in September last year.
For the 12 months to September-end, passenger numbers improved by 16% to 37.9 million, with capacity increasing by 14% to 40.6 million. Load factor was 1.4 percentage point higher at 93.4%.
Looking ahead, Wizz Air said it is planning a route network expansion with 24 new routes to Poland, Hungary and Romania as well as Brussels Zaventem as a new destination. The FTSE 250-listed airline also said it intends to allocate five new aircraft to Budapest, Warsaw, Gdansk and Krakow.
Ryanair shares were down 1.7% at EUR10.59 each on Wednesday morning in London, while Wizz Air shares were trading 0.5% lower at 3,625.00 pence each.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
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