The latest monthly traffic statistics from budget airline Wizz Air (WIZZ) continue to demonstrate just how much the aviation industry has been impacted from the coronavirus pandemic.

Wizz Air’s April stats show a 97.6% drop in passenger numbers compared to a year ago, with the Hungarian airline carrying 78,389 passengers last month, compared to 3.28m in April 2019.

Shares in the FTSE 250 constituent dropped 1.23% to £25.78 on the news.

Its passenger load factor, which indicates how full the plane is, was still relatively high at 74.7% given the circumstances, but was 17.3% down on the 91.9% it had recorded in April last year.

LOAD FACTORS EXPLAINED

It was also still below Wizz Air’s 80.9% break-even load factor (how many seats it has to fill to break even) as calculated from last published full year results to 31 March 2019.

The breakeven load factor is calculated by dividing the cost per available seat kilometre (CASK) or mile (CASM) by the yield, i.e. average fare per passenger per kilometre/mile.

Passenger load factors are an important metric for airlines as they show how well the airlines are doing in filling their planes.

For budget airlines with low fares, anything over 90% is considered good and is typically the point at which they can start growing by buying or leasing more aircraft.

NEW DESTINATIONS

Perhaps somewhat optimistically, Wizz Air has also announced that it plans to launch five new destinations to Abu Dhabi from June, with the first flights intended to go there next month from Bucharest and Budapest.

It added that the launch of its new low cost airline Wizz Air Abu Dhabi is ‘progressing in line with the initial timeline.’

In addition, the company plans to open a new base in Lviv, Ukraine, on 1 July with one based aircraft and five new destinations, as well as two additional services from another Ukrainian city, Kharkiv.

READ MORE ABOUT WIZZ AIR HERE

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Issue Date: 05 May 2020