Wizz Air CEO expects smaller airline industry after pandemic

The world will have a smaller airline industry as a result of the coronavirus crisis with many privately funded carriers set to go under and governments throwing "good money after bad" to keep national champions afloat, Wizz Air's CEO said. Worst hit will be traditional carriers relying on a hub-and-spoke network and business traffic, but Wizz expects demand for its own cheap fares and direct routes to snap back quickly once the pandemic fades, the Hungarian airline’s co-founder said. Wizz aims to widen a gap in unit costs compared to the rest of the airline industry thanks to regular deliveries of new Airbus AIR.PA aircraft, CE Jozsef Varadi added. Co-founded in 2003 by Varadi, a former head of Hungary’s defunct national carrier Malev, Wizz Air is one of Europe’s largest budget carriers with a focus primarily on central and eastern parts of the continent. He bemoaned a lack of political coordination over travel restrictions and other measures to tackle the crisis and urged policymakers to pay more attention to the economic impact. “As far as Wizz is concerned, the moment COVID falls away I think we will be back to 2019 levels,” Varadi said. “We can go very quickly, but the issue is not underlying consumer demand; the issue is restrictions imposed by governments.” Wizz is operating on half normal traffic now, he said.<br/>