US investors to sell Wizz Air shares
US private equity firm Indigo Partners is to sell up to £500 million of shares in Wizz Air, which today announced a 23% increase in year-on-year passenger numbers to 3.15 million in January.
Indigo Partners currently holds almost a 21% stake in the Eastern Europe-based budget airline.
The carrier last week lifted its profit guidance for the full year to between €350 million and €355 million after announcing a third-quarter net profit of €21.4 million for the period to the end of December 2019. It made a €21 million loss in the same period of 2018.
Today, Wizz revealed that it carried 3.15 million passengers in January, almost 23% more than in the January 2019, and it’s load factor was up 2.1 percentage points to 90.2%.
The airline, which claims to have a lower carbon footprint than all its rival airlines, cut its CO2 emissions per passenger by just under 1% in January, but overall they were up 21.3% due to its increase in traffic.
Wizz will expand further this year, launching four new routes in Russia in the summer and 18 new routes elsewhere in Europe.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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