Wizz Air’s May passenger numbers fell by more than 96% year-on-year, underlining the stark reality facing the aviation sector amid the coronavirus crisis.
The budget carrier flew just 126,549 passengers last month, down 96.4% (3,470,889) last year, on a greatly decreased load factor, down 32.8 percentage points from 93.9% to 61.1%.
It comes after Ryanair on Wednesday (3 June) revealed group passengers numbers were down 99.5% in May to just 70,000 carryings.
Both Wizz and Ryanair are preparing for the European aviation sector to restart in earnest later this month and into July.
Wizz plans to launch a handful of new routes over the coming weeks, including five to Spain and Portugal – Las Palmas (4 June), Faro (16 June), Palma (1 July), Malaga (1 July) and Fuerteventura (3 July). It has also announced four new bases in Milan, Larnaca, Lviv and Tirana.
Ryanait, meanwhile, will restore 40% of its normal flight schedule from 1 July. It hopes to initially operate nearly 1,000 daily flights to 90% of its pre-coronavirus route network, subject to any travel restrictions.