Low-cost carrier Wizz Air posts strong annual results

Low-cost airline Wizz Air has delivered strong full-year results, with pre-tax profit up 4.5% to E300m, bucking a recent trend of bad news in the industry. CE Jozsef Varadi said performance was “very solid” and that net profit would rise from E292m to between E320m and E350m in the 2019-20 financial year. But the company also said that unit costs would rise 2% next year, with unit revenues growing in the low single digits. Varadi said that higher fuel prices were driving “weaker carriers” out of the market, which allowed Wizz to increase its market share. Alex Paterson, analyst at Investec, said Wizz’s guidance for next year was “slightly disappointingly . . . below current consensus of E353m”, but he pointed to a “tough environment, Brexit risks and potential disruptions across the summer months”. Varadi said Wizz was better prepared for a “not improving, maybe deteriorating” operating environment — like that which affected the sector last summer — by having spare planes and crews on standby. Strikes and staff shortages among air traffic controllers in Europe last year caused flight delays to more than double to a total of 19.1m minutes. Wizz Air revenue for the year to March 31 2019 came in slightly below analysts’ consensus estimates, up 20% to E2.3b.<br/>