Wizz Air to fly at 60 per cent capacity in second quarter due to new restrictions
Low-cost carrier Wizz Air this morning said that it expected to carry 60 per cent of its capacity in the second quarter due to new travel restrictions being imposed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
In Hungary, the budget airline’s home market, foreign travellers will from today only be able to enter the country in exceptional cases.
Meanwhile, the UK looks set to reimpose 14-day quarantine restrictions onto Portugal – which would make itthe 18th country to be taken off its travel corridors list.
In an operational update, Wizz Air warned that if the current restrictions were to persist, capacity in the third quarter would remain at 60 per cent, down from the 80 per cent previously anticipated.
Furthermore, the airline did not rule out cutting further flights, saying it could ground some of its planes over the unprofitable winter period.
“Further capacity reductions remain a possibility and as a result, Wizz Air may park parts of its fleet throughout the winter season to protect its cash balance”, it said.
The airline was one of the first carriers to get back in the air after the initial wave of coronavirus swept across the world, leading to a near-total shutdown in air travel.
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In July, the airline flew over 1.8m passengers, almost half the number that it carried in the same month the year before.
However, the figure was over three times more the number of passengers it flew in June.
Last week the airline committed to its planned expansion at Gatwick Airport despite the pandemic, in a rare moment of good news for the West Sussex airport.
Despite the UK government’s quarantine plans, Wizz Air chief executive Jozsef Varadi told Bloomberg that it was still on track to open a base at Gatwick in October.
Although it will have just one plane when it opens, the plan is to build this up to 20 planes, leading to a potential 800 extra jobs at the site.
The development came after Gatwick announced it would cut nearly a quarter of its workforce as it fell to £321m loss.
Virgin Atlantic has already said it will put out of the site, while there are rumours that British Airways is mulling a similar move.