Wizz Air sees capacity drop in September as quarantine bites
Budget carrier Wizz Air saw capacity drop 20 per cent in September as the imposition of quarantine restrictions hampered the airline industry’s nascent recovery.
The Hungarian airline flew 1.56m passengers last month at a capacity of 60 per cent, down from 2.4m passengers at 80 per cent in August.
Year-on-year, over 60 per cent fewer passengers took a flight with Wizz Air in September, compared with 3.8m in September 2019.
For the year to date, the carrier has flown 24.4m passengers, around 35.6 per cent down on last year.
The current quarantine regime in the UK, which has seen the government reimpose restrictions on most of mainland Europe over the course of the last couple of months, has seriously hit airlines trying to up their capacity before the winter season kicks in.
Last week Ryanair revealed that it had flown just 5.1m passengers in September, almost two-thirds lower than the 14.1m it flew in 2019.
Over the year thus far the Irish carrier has flown just over half the 150m passengers it had carried by this stage last year.
In September, the flier announced that it would cut capacity by 20 per cent in October to just 40 per cent.
A spokesperson for the firm slammed governments around Europe for “mismanagement” of the quarantine situation:
“However, as customer confidence is damaged by government mismanagement of Covid travel policies, many Ryanair customers are unable to travel for business or urgent family reasons without being subjected to defective 14-day quarantines.”
The airline warned that similar capacity cuts may be required over the winter period if current trends continued.