Wizz Air stock surges 10 per cent as passenger numbers take off
Wizz Air’s passenger numbers surged in January, growing 14.2 per cent from last year, as the airline’s level of pollutants grew almost twice as fast as its passengers.
In a stock exchange notice today, the airline said throughout the month, it carried 4,740,815 passengers. The firm’s stock price is up 10 per cent this morning.
Despite this, the airline’s load factor – the percentage of available seating capacity that has been filled with passengers – actually decreased by 4.1 percentage points, as capacity for the airline rose by 19.9 per cent in January.
This was due to “the reallocation of capacity in response to evolving geopolitical events”, as well as an increase in one-directional visual flight rule traffic, the airline said.
Throughout the month, the airline’s CO2 emissions in tonnes was 475,294, a 24.2 per cent increase from January 2023.
While this is largely due to an increase in passengers, the CO2 grams per passenger per kilometre still saw a 7.2 per cent spike throughout the month, at 54.9.
To compare, the airline said that it continued to have the lowest emissions per passenger per kilometre among competitor airlines, at an average of 51.8 grams over the last 12 months.
The low-cost airline also noted that it was set to reinstate flights between Jordan and Abu Dhabi from 4 February, while it will restart operations in Tel Aviv at the beginning of March.
“Wizz Air is actively implementing measures to optimise our network and adapt to these dynamic conditions, with the aim of enhancing efficiency and supporting a recovery in load factors going forward,” it said.