Budget airline carriers, Wizz Air Holdings (LON:WIZZ) and Ryanair Holdings (LON:RYA) hav released their monthly passenger figures.
2020 has been a tough year for the airline industry. The ongoing coronavirus epidemic has meant that many travel restrictions have been enforced, and rivals such as IAG (LON:IAG) have suspended flights both ways into China.
Following the updates on the coronavirus, this week’s news headlines reported that the pathogen had hit Italy. Interestingly, both Ryanair and Wizz Air have operations in Italy – and so both firms have speculated on results going forward.
Looking at February passenger figures however – both firms were not significantly affected by the coronavirus, as results have shown progress.
Ryanair noted that passenger numbers rose 9% year on year in February, with a total of 10.5 million.
Notably, performance from its Austrian subsidiary Lauda was noted – as this division saw a 67% rise to 500,000 passengers. Ryanair’s group load factor was 96%, with a 96% factor for Ryanair and 94% for Lauda.
Looking on an annual rolling basis, the Irish budget airline also added that group passenger numbers climbed 8% to 153.8 million with a 96% load factor.
Turning to Wizz Air, the FTSE 100 listed firm reported that passenger numbers rose 26% to 2.4 million, against a year on year basis.
Wizz Air saw their passenger numbers rise 20% on a yearly rolling basis, to 41 million. Additionally, load factor rose to 93.7% from 92.6%, with capacity up 18%.
The future looks rather speculative for the airline industry at the moment. The UK Government today announced plans that would be put in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus – however further travel restrictions could be enforced, which may further bruise trading within the airline industry.
For both these firms, the worrying thing could be that the coronavirus is now affecting countries in Europe. Yesterday, Italian health officials released figures that showed the number of coronavirus linked deaths rising from 18 to 52.
As both firms drum up revenue from short haul flights to and from Europe – as travel legislation gets passed, this could sent a pessimistic tone within both Wizz Air and Ryanair.
Following the crash that the FTSE 100 faced last week, it was no surprise that airlines were hit the hardest. However, in the short term both Ryanair and Wizz Air will remain cautious as the full scale of the coronavirus is yet to be fully understood.