Wizz Air boosted by Robin Hood

Eastern European airline Wizz Air continued its rapid growth in passenger numbers in the last quarter of last year - boosted by its popularity at Doncaster Sheffield Airport.
A Wizz Air flight to Robin HoodA Wizz Air flight to Robin Hood
A Wizz Air flight to Robin Hood

The company had 4.7m passengers in the three months to the end of December a rise of 23.2 per cent, while revenue rose 17.3 per cent to £236m.

In Doncaster, Wizz operates 35 flights a week to 10 destinations - up from 21 flights in 2014.

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Kate Stow, head of marketing for Doncaster Sheffield Airport said: “We saw a 41 percent growth from Wizz Air in 2015.

“New destinations included Riga, Latvia, Bucharest, Romania, Kosice, Slovakia, and Lublin.

“This was coupled with additional growth on existing routes, and extra frequency, which resulted in growth of over 120,000 passengers.

“There is further growth planned for this year with a new destination from July to Cluj in Romania and we are forecasting a further 27 percent year-on-year growth.”

Nationally, the airline now operates 400 routes.

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The company seems to have avoided the impact of a series of attacks last year, in Paris, Tunisia and Egypt, after which some European airlines and holiday operators saw their sales fall.

Earlier this week, easyJet said its revenue per seat had dropped in the wake of the attacks.

József Váradi, Wizz Air chief executive said: “Our results in the third quarter have been ahead of expectations with robust trading across all of our markets.

“In light of this performance and encouraging forward bookings in the fourth quarter the company raised its underlying net profit guidance for the full year.”