Shares in budget airline Wizz Air (LON:WIZZ) tumbled over 6 percent on Wednesday morning, after industrial action from air traffic controllers impacted quarterly results.

Profit for the three months through June fell to €50 million, despite recording an 18 percent rise in revenue to €553.4 million. The group blamed the fall in profits on air traffic strikes, saying an ‘unprecedented number of disruptions’ caused mainly by European air traffic control issues led to a five-fold increase in cancellations to 145 by Wizz Air.

Passenger delay and compensation costs tripled to €9.1 million.
Operating expenses also increased by 23 per cent to €499 million, with both staff and fuel costs up by around a third.

Chief executive Jozsef Varadi said:

“This was a very solid performance given the absence of high yielding Easter traffic which fell into the end of the last financial year as well as a backdrop of significant challenges caused by European air traffic control issues.

“With these disruptions likely to continue into autumn and on the back of a continued rise in fuel prices in the first quarter the company took the decision to trim its full year growth target from 20 percent to 18 percent.’

“Wizz is well positioned to deliver in 2019 and beyond and we remain confident in our full-year guidance of €310-to-€340 million net profit for the year.”

Shares in Wizz Air are currently down 6.13 percent at 3,340.00 (0841GMT).