2022 a year for transition and recovery, says Wizz Air

WIZZ Air says it expects 2022 to be a transition year, letting airlines gradually recover from the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The London-listed airline said its recovery will be largely reliant on the rollout of vaccines across Europe.

But as the economy reopens, the company says it will be ready to take on its rivals in the sector.

“We will become an even more formidable company that will continue to create shareholder value and top-of-the-class profitability,” the business said yesterday.

It came as the airline revealed the extent of the devastation caused by Covid-19 in the past year. Wizz Air had made a pre-tax profit of €294.1m (£254m) a year earlier, but collapsed to a loss of €566.5m (£489m) in the 12 months to the end of March.

The airline has a British division called Wizz Air UK, which has four bases in the UK, including one at Cardiff Airport.

The carrier will commence flights from Cardiff Airport on June 17, operating routes to Larnaca (Cyprus), Corfu, Heraklion (Crete), Faro (Algarve), Alicante, Lanzarote, Palma de Mallorca and Tenerife.

Passenger numbers and revenue both fell by around threequarters to 10.2 million and €739m (£638m) respectively.

The past year has been “unprecedented in the 17-year history of Wizz Air”, said chief executive Jozsef Varadi.

“The aviation industry was heavily impacted by Covid-19-related regulations, with passenger airlines around the world going into prolonged hibernation to survive whilst calling upon extensive financial support.”

Wizz Air added: “We expect 2022 to be a transition year where we will experience a slow but gradual recovery, mostly subject to the pace of vaccinations globally, including in Europe.”

Airlines have faced a heavy burden during the pandemic, with restrictions on international travel imposed by governments around the world.

For large parts of the past year flying has been restricted to a few vital purposes, and often with requirements for arrivals to quarantine for days or weeks.

Airlines are still operating at heavily reduced capacity. Separately yesterday, Ryanair reported it carried 1.8 million passengers in May.

This is higher than the approximately 70,000 it carried in the same period last year, but heavily down on May 2019, when more than 14 million passengers took one of its flights.