Wizz Air Holding, in a post-close trading update for the financial year ending 31st March 2022 (FY22), said that it expects a reported F22 net loss of €(652)-(632)m. The operating result for Q4 F22 is expected to be in the range of €(210) – (190)m, ahead of the guidance provided at the Q3 update behind a stronger trading environment.
Wizz Air confirms its stable investment grade balance sheet (Baa3 by Moody’s and BBB- by Fitch) and strong liquidity position with a total cash / cash equivalents balance of €1,379m at year-end.
At the start of F23 (the year ending 31st March 2023) the Company said that it is on track to ramp-up operations and crewing for a busy summer flying programme when it expects to operate ASKs more than 30% ahead of 2019 in the April – June 2022 quarter and more than 40% ahead of 2019 in the July – September 2022 quarter. “We have been encouraged by demand trends in recent weeks and given the shorter booking horizon expect the bookings for this summer to build significantly after Easter,” the airline stated, adding that it continues to monitor the situation in Ukraine, Moldova and Russia. Although flights to/from these locations remain suspended, Wizz Air confirmed that it has reallocated the affected capacity to other parts of its network.
Wizz Air has hedged for a coverage of 36% of planned jet fuel volume consumption from April to August 2022 with an average ceiling price of 1,130 USD/mT.
The airline stated that its focus for fiscal year 2023 will be maximising revenue and returning to pre-COVID productivity levels, “that should result in improved profitability during this period”.
“In F22 the aviation industry continued to be impacted by COVID-19. The latest virus variant, Omicron, proved to be of benign nature, which helped to relax government travel restrictions across a majority of our network. Distressingly, the war in Ukraine dented demand for air travel and destabilized commodity prices across the globe,” said József Váradi, Wizz Air Chief Executive. “Despite these developments we are starting to see recovery take shape as we move closer to the summer of 2022. The strength of Wizz Air’s diversified and expanded network in combination with the most efficient fleet of aircraft and the execution against its proven ULCC model, will allow the pre-COVID-19 cost structure to be achieved – and in this industry lowest cost prevails. In addition, our continued investments in renewing the fleet enabled us to exceed F22 CO2/RPK target by 0.4 grams per passenger km setting us on the right path of reaching our CO2 emission intensity target by 2030 (43 grams per pax km), unrivalled by any of our European competitors.”