Wizz Air has reported wider losses in the three months to 31 December as travel was disrupted by Omicron and the group carried out expansion plans.
The airline hired new employees and bought new airplanes causing losses to deepen from £223.6m to €267.5m, which is a difference of 129.8%.
The number of passengers in he period jumped from 2.2m to 7.8m, however, rising fuel costs also dented profits. Fuel rose 22.9% compared to the same period a year earlier.
Chief executive József Váradi said: “Wizz Air continued its recovery during the third quarter of F22 and well exceeded 2019 passenger and capacity levels in the peak holiday traveling period, despite the emergence of the Omicron variant.”
“Our operating loss was €213.6 million as travel restrictions continued to affect demand as we continued to ramp up our workforce, fleet, bases and routes to support our path to full utilisation and pre-Covid 19 cost structure by late Spring 2022. Our liquidity remained strong and closed at €1.4 billion at the end of December 2021,” he added.
Wizz Air remains “cautiously optimistic for a continued recovery” into 2022.