Wizz Air Holdings PLC (LON:WIZZ) announced yesterday that they have suspended flights to Italy and Israel.
Many travel businesses are facing the full force of the coronavirus epidemic – and airline carriers have seen their shares in red since the outbreak of COVID-19.
Wizz Air have made ensured efforts to try and limit the impact of the coronavirus on their operations – however flight and travel restrictions have become a mandatory action as countries such as Italy have now been put into lockdown.
The budget airline said that flights to and from 14 destinations in Italy have been suspended until April 3rd – which could affect trading over the next quarter.
Looking into Israel – Wizz Air added that routes into Tel Aviv and Eilat will be suspended between March 12 and March 23.
This follows the Israeli government issuing a two week quarantine on all travelers entering the country.
Wizz Air announces measures to limit coronavirus
Last week, Wizz Air announced measure which were intended to mitigate the virus impact.
The firm noted that they have adjusted their travel schedule from March 11 to April 2 – with the main alterations being made in flights to and from Italy.
Measures have included cutting overhead and discretionary spending significantly, as well as leveraging staff across its network so as to pause recruitment along with “non-essential travel”.
Wizz Air added tat they are working with suppliers to reduce costs, and have speculated over further adjustments to network capacity in the magnitude of 10% in the first quarter of its financial year.
József Váradi, Wizz Air Chief Executive commented:
“Our ever-disciplined attitude to cost enables Wizz Air to partly offset some of the headwinds due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which have driven a temporary decline in demand and an increase in the cost of disruption as we put the well-being of passengers and crew first.
Wizz Air’s ultra-low cost business model and our strong balance sheet and liquidity provide a solid foundation and a significant competitive advantage in the current challenging environment for airlines, making us a structural winner in the aviation sector in the long term.”
