Low-cost airline Wizz Air blamed an early Easter and air traffic strikes for reduced first quarter profits.
In a trading update, the Hungarian budget leisure carrier revealed overall revenue in the three months increased 17.9% to €553.4 million.
This comprised of increased ticket revenues of 24.5% to €330.4 million and ancillary revenues growth of 9.3% to €223.0 million.
But profit for the quarter was €50.0 million, a fall of €8.1 million compared to the first quarter of 2017 reflecting the timing of Easter effect and higher than expected disruption costs.
The carrier said an unprecedented number of disruptions caused mainly by European air traffic control issues led to a 426% increase in cancellations to 145.
On time performance deteriorated by 7.8 percentage points to 74.4% as a result and passenger delay and compensation costs incurred increased by 203% to €9.1 million.
The airline saw a unit revenue decline 1.4% to 3.67 euro cents per available seat kilometre (ASK), while overall costs were up 2.2% to 3.30 euro cents per ASK.
Non-fuel costs decreased 1.1% per ASK but fuel costs were up 10.2% per ASK. Load factors increased 0.9 percentage points to 92.1% and ancillary revenue per passenger decreased 8.6% to €25.6.
The separately reported Wizz Tours division saw first-quarter package holiday revenues hit €4.6 million.
Passengers carried increased 19.7% to 8.6 million consolidating Wizz Air’s position as central Europe’s leading low-cost carrier.
The airline’s network has continued to grow with the announcement of 20 new routes during Q1. Wizz Air now offers more than 600 routes to/from 44 countries from 25 bases.
Its fleet increased to 102 aircraft with the addition of nine A320 and A321 aircraft taking the mix to 71 A320 and 31 A321 Airbus aircraft.
József Váradi, Wizz Air chief executive said: “Wizz Air has once again delivered double-digit growth in passenger numbers and revenues, while also delivering ever higher load factors and net profit of €50m in the first quarter.
“This was a very solid performance given the absence of high yielding Easter traffic which fell into the end of the last financial year as well as a backdrop of significant challenges caused by European air traffic control issues.
“With these disruptions likely to continue into autumn and on the back of a continued rise in fuel prices in the first quarter the company took the decision to trim its full year growth target from 20% to 18%.
Váradi added: “Looking beyond the quarter, we are making exciting progress in continuing to build WIZZ into Europe’s lowest cost airline.
“Our fleet grew past the milestone of 100 aircraft in Q1 and we carried more than 30 million passengers over the last 12 months.
“Despite the success we have had, our ambition to drive WIZZ’s growth and further lower our cost base is undiminished.
“We have game-changing “NEO” aircraft technology starting delivery from next January, an enviable committed aircraft order book, a valuable employee base as well as an investment grade balance sheet with over €1.1 billion of free cash all of which will help us deliver our goals.
“Our base and route network continues to grow and we added Vienna to our list of bases during Q1 and also commenced operations under our UK AOC with seven aircraft and almost 250 employees now operating out of Luton.
“WIZZ is well positioned to deliver in 2019 and beyond and we remain confident in our full year guidance of €310 to €340 million net profit for the year.”