31st May 2019 07:56
LONDON (Alliance News) - Wizz Air Holdings PLC on Friday reported a record year for passenger numbers and revenue, despite a number of headwinds.
The FTSE 250 airline, which focuses on central and eastern Europe, posted revenue for the 12 months to March 31 of EUR2.32 billion, 20% higher from EUR1.93 billion reported a year ago. Passenger numbers were up 17% to 34.6 million.
Wizz Air's ticket revenue increased 21% to EUR1.37 billion, with ancillary revenue rising 18% to EUR953 million.
The size of Wizz Air's fleet at the end of its financial year was 112 aircraft, up from 93 a year before.
The company's load factor, a measurement of seat occupation, was 92.8% versus 91.3%. The airline's unit costs rose by 5% to 3.35 euro cents per available seat kilometre, with revenue per available seat up 2% to 3.85 cents.
The firm's pretax profit increased 4.5% year-on-year to EUR300.2 million, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation, and aircraft rentals was 8.9% higher at EUR718.5 million.
"This was a very solid performance given the absence of Easter traffic which fell into the end of the last financial year, higher fuel prices, and a challenging operating environment across the industry," said Chief Executive Jozsef Varadi.
The company is optimistic for its new financial year ending March 2020, seeing capacity rising 16% and a net profit of between EUR320 million and EUR350 million versus EUR292 million recorded in 2019 financial.
CEO Varadi did stress, however, that this guidance is dependent on a good performance during the "all-important" summer.
"We remain very optimistic for the current financial year. Higher fuel prices are supporting a stronger fare environment and we expect these macro conditions to provide Wizz Air with market share opportunities as weaker carriers withdraw unprofitable capacity," he added.
"Our ability to drive cost advantage further and offer low fares across our ever expanding network will lead to an expected 17% increase in passenger numbers to 40 million in financial 2020."
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