Wizz Air comes down to earth as compensation payouts soar

WIZZ AIR crash-landed at the bottom of London’s leaderboard after a bumpy first quarter saw it blown off course by a 426pc surge in cancellations.

With air traffic control walkouts causing chaos in the skies over Europe, the FTSE 250 airline admitted it was helpless to stop passenger delay and compensation costs skyrocketing 203pc to €9.1m (£8.1m).

The budget central and eastern European carrier said that the recent jump in fuel costs and expectations of continued disruption from labour unrest forced it to cut its full-year capacity growth target by two percentage points to 18pc.

Finishing the worst performing stock on London’s main market, Wizz slipped away from record highs to dip 302p lower at £32.56. Meanwhile, rival

Thomas Cook slumped 2.7p to 89.5p after UBS warned that intensifying competition will impact its “already thin margins”.

Elsewhere, blue-chip housebuilders dominated the top spots on the FTSE 100 leaderboard after Berenberg dismissed worries over climbing construction costs and cooling prices.

With the housing crisis a key political battleground, its analysts argued that Help to Buy will be maintained and predicted that the new-build sector will outperform the wider market. Its analysts noted that balance sheets in the sector are “much healthier”, and that the top seven builders started 2008 with £3.7bn of net debt compared with net cash of £2.9bn at the end of 2017.

Berenberg’s top picks, Taylor Wimpey and Barratt Developments, rallied 3.1p to 175.4p and 7.2p to 529.2p, respectively, while the wider FTSE 100 dropped 50.79 points to 7,658.26 as the mood soured ahead of crunch trade talks between the US and EU.

Drugmaker Indivior suffered another doubledigit shares slide after warning that a copycat version of its opioid addiction treatment is already eating into its market share. Indivior’s share of its Suboxone film drug slipped from an average 54pc in the first half of the year to 49pc by July 13 as Dr Reddy’s generic version hit sales. The embattled firm closed 25.8p lower at 307.7p.

Metro Bank recovered from a 6.3pc slide after raising £303m in a shares placing to replenish its capital buffers, finishing just 52p lower at £33.70. Precious metals miner

Fresnillo slumped 81p to £10.25, a two-year low, after a lack of processing water at its San Julián site in Mexico forced it to slash its silver production guidance.

BT edged down 1.4p to 222.5p on RBC Capital Markets downgrading the telecoms giant to “sectorperform” after being “hard pressed to find any catalysts” to spark a share price resurgence.