Wizz Air profit flies as bigger planes keep costs down

Wizz Air sees profit soaring again this year as bigger, more efficient A321 planes help it to keep costs down, putting it on course to outshine larger rival Ryanair which is more pessimistic about prospects. Wizz, which mainly serves passengers in central and eastern Europe, said Thursday that profit could climb as much as 24% in the 12 months to the end of next March, boosting its shares by 4.5%. By contrast Europe's biggest low cost airline Ryanair said this week that its profits would fall for the first time in five years, hit by higher fuel and staffing costs and flat fares. Wizz Air is also expecting labour costs to rise this year, but said the growing proportion of Airbus A321 aircraft in its fleet gave it an advantage as the planes were more fuel efficient and carried more passengers. Overall it was guiding for costs excluding fuel to fall by 1%. "That is a significantly different position from our competitors. You are seeing cost creep with all of them," Wizz CE Jozsef Varadi said. For the 12 months to March 31, Wizz reported net profit of E275m, a 22% jump on the year before. "Overall, this is a very positive outlook," Goodbody analysts said.<br/>