Wizz to cut flying plans on new lockdowns, sees summer rebound

Wizz Air will cut its flying plans for January because of new lockdowns in Britain, its chief executive Jozsef Varadi said, adding there was little visibility for the coming months but travel demand should return by summer. Earlier on Thursday, larger competitor Ryanair cut its annual traffic forecast by around 5m passengers, also blaming lockdowns. During December, Varadi said Wizz flew 35% of 2019’s capacity. He forecast that the new lockdowns in the United Kingdom, one of Wizz’s three biggest markets alongside Romania and Poland, would mean capacity would fall to 25% in January. Varadi, who co-founded Wizz in Hungary in 2003, said Wizz’s longer term growth story remained intact, and the airline should bounce back. “I think if restrictions get removed by summer, I would say that summer 2021 would not be far away from summer 2019 from our perspective,” he said. “But you would not see that happening at many of the other airlines.”<br/>