Wizz Air Holdings PLC on Thursday said it swung to an annual profit, as revenue rose strongly in its financial 2024 alongside rising passenger numbers.

In the year ended March 31, the Budapest-based budget airline said it swung to a pretax profit of €341.1 million from a loss of €564.6 million a year earlier.

Revenue rose 30% to €5.07 billion from €3.90 billion.

Passengers carried in the financial year rose 21% to 62.0 million from 51.1 million.

‘Sustained healthy demand for air travel across our markets was a defining feature of [financial 2024], signalling that the surge witnessed post pandemic has evolved into a longer-term trend in consumer behaviour,’ said Chief Executive Officer Jozsef Varadi. ‘Wizz Air has been strongly positioned for this trend as reflected in our performance for the year.

‘We placed a sharp focus on increasing utilisation, improving load factors and lowering unit costs (fuel and ex-fuel), and continued to invest in our operations. Our efforts saw us carry a record number of passengers during the year, return to profitability and reduce financial leverage while maintaining our total cash position.’

Varadi continued: ‘As we enter [financial 2025], demand for air travel remains robust, with no sign of abating in the near term, supporting a higher yield environment as capacity across the whole industry remains constrained.

‘Our current trading indicators are positive, with selling load factors trending higher year on year in the first two fiscal quarters and unit revenue performing equally well.’

Looking ahead, Wizz Air expects financial 2025 unit revenue to be up by a ‘high single digit’ percentage from a year earlier, and for net income to be the range of €500 million to €600 million at current foreign exchange rates.

Shares in Wizz Air were up 5.2% at 2,064.00 pence each in London on Thursday morning.

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