Wizz Air is offering lower ticket prices to Cyprus after routes to the island experienced a slight dip in demand due to its close proximity to the Middle East.
The news comes after it was recently announced that the ban on drones and paragliding in the British Bases has been lifted due to the risk of drone strikes being lowered enough to allow for recreational activities again.
Chief Executive Jozsef Varadi told Reuters that the airline is making sure our prices are competitive in that context, adding that demand was already growing on those routes.
Echoing increasingly bullish views from some European airlines, a handful of which have benefited as Europeans book holidays closer to home during the Middle East conflict, he said he was not concerned about jet fuel supplies for the next six months and the carrier had not cancelled any flights due to a lack of fuel.
“Fuel is available in Europe,” he said. “Looking at the next, I don’t know, six, eight months, I think we just look fine. And we got the confirmations by suppliers for availability of fuel.”
Wizz Air expects revenue to rise 2% in the key summer season versus a year earlier with its budget fares attracting passengers and helping it to offset the impact of the Iran war.
“We are seeing not just volume lift, but also revenue lift for peak summer,” Varadi said, offering a positive signal from the air travel market as it grapples with spiking jet fuel prices and worries that fewer people will fly.
The relatively upbeat projection, previously unreported, reinforces the carrier’s reversal of fortunes since it issued a profit warning after the start of the Iran war. It has been battling to win over investors, who drove its already-struggling shares lower as worries mounted over high jet fuel prices and belt-tightening consumers.
Wizz Air said on Tuesday it expects to break even or achieve slightly positive full-year earnings for its 2026 financial year that ended March 31.
The airline has said that 44% of summer capacity has been booked, some two percentage points ahead of last year.
Varadi told Reuters the stronger projection for the 2026 financial year was enabled in part by cost cuts as it postponed or rolled back new IT innovation programs. The results will be released in June.
(Reuters)
Read more: