Wizz Air will not give financial guidance due to uncertainty
Wizz Air (LON:WIZZ), the low budget Hungarian airline, has said that it expects flying would recover gradually and towards the end of the summer as the industry remains constrained by the pandemic.
The FTSE 250 company said via a trading statement on Thursday that the speed of the recovery in the industry would pick up as national vaccination roll-outs were progressing in its core markets, which include Hungary, the UK, Poland and Italy.
There was discontent within the airline industry last week when the UK government did not confirm exactly when travel could resume nor which countries would be placed on its green list of low-risk destinations.
The airline said it would not be able to give financial guidance due to the ongoing certainty.
“The start of the year ending 31st March 2022 continues to be marked by travel restrictions across our region and we expect only a gradual traffic recovery into late summer 2021,” Wizz said.
For the full year ending on March 2021, Wizz said it would report an underlying loss of between €475m and €495m. The company is set to report the results on June 2.
The airline has cash reserves of €1.615bn and said it would be able to survive for years without flying.
Wizz spent €87m in the three months to the end of March as the company continues its focus on reducing costs.
The Wizz air share price is down by 0.53% on early morning trading to 4,839p.
Declaring the conclusions of the Global Travel Taskforce set up by the government to examine how leisure travel could be reopened safely after lockdown, Mr Shapps said foreign holidays would resume on 17 May at the earliest.
He told the BBC: “This is the first time I’m able to come on and say I’m not advising against booking foreign holidays.”
“But for the first time I think there is light at the end of the tunnel and we’ll be able to restart international travel, including cruises by the way, in a safe and secure way, knowing about the vaccinations, everything we know about the disease this year, and of course that abundance of caution – having the tests in place.”
