2nd Apr 2019 07:51
LONDON (Alliance News) - Irish budget airline Ryanair Holdings PLC on Tuesday said its traffic grew in March, while smaller peer Wizz Air Holdings PLC experienced an even sharper rise.
Ryanair said March passenger numbers rose 9.0% to 10.9 million. On a rolling annual basis Ryanair's traffic was also up 9.0% to 142.1 million.
The airline's load factor stood at 96% both in March and over the 12-month rolling period.
Furthermore, Ryanair said its pilots based in Portugal voted in favour of a collective labour agreement governing pay and conditions for the next four years.
The agreement was negotiated between the airline and the Portuguese pilot union, SPAC, and covers all of Ryanair's directly employed pilots in Portugal.
Meanwhile, central and eastern Europe-focused airline Wizz Air Holdings PLC reported further traffic growth in March, as it said it expects its annual profit to come in towards the top of its guidance.
For the month of March, Wizz Air reported a 9.9% rise in passenger numbers to 2.7 million, while the increase was even greater, up 17% to 34.6 million, on a rolling 12 months basis.
The company increased its capacity - the number of available seats - by 6.9% in March to 2.9 million and by 15% in the past 12 month to 37.3 million.
Load factor in March rose 2.6 percentage points to 94.1%. It was up 1.4 percentage point to 92.8% over the past year.
Wizz Air said it expects its annual net profit for the year ended March to come in towards the upper half of its guidance range of between EUR270 million and EUR300 million. A year ago, Wizz Air's net profit amounted to EUR275 million.
This was after fourth quarter trading in line with expectations and "robust" demand across the company's key geographical territories, Wizz Air explained.
Wizz Air said it experienced an "excellent operational performance" in March with only one cancelled flight compared to 68 in March 2018. During the month, the airline expanded adding 15 new routes to and from Poland, Romania, UK, Ukraine, Serbia and Moldova.
Looking ahead, Wizz Air said it started the new year well, forecasting a 4.0% increase in revenue per available seat per kilometre in the first quarter.
Wizz Air will report its annual results on May 31.
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