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LONDON, April 15 (Reuters) - Hungarian low cost airline Wizz
Air forecast flying would only recover gradually into
late summer, as the travel industry enters a second year of
pandemic restrictions.
Wizz Air said on Thursday it thought the pace of the travel
recovery would pick-up as national vaccination programmes made
progress in its key markets, which include Hungary, Britain,
Poland and Italy.
The British government disappointed airlines and consumers
last Friday when it failed to say when travel could restart and
which countries would be on its green list of low-risk
destinations.
Despite the ongoing uncertainty, competitor airlines easyJet
and British Airways were upbeat on Wednesday
that some travel would restart from May 17, the earliest date
the UK has said is possible.
Wizz said the ongoing uncertainty meant it could not provide
financial guidance for its new financial year.
"The start of the year ending 31st March 2022 continues to
be marked by travel restrictions across our region and we expect
only a gradual traffic recovery into late summer 2021," the
airline said.
For the 12 months to the end of March 2021, it said it would
report an underlying loss of between 475 million euros and 495
million euros. It will report results on June 2.
Wizz, one of Europe's strongest airlines financially, said
it had total cash of 1.615 billion euros at its year end,
meaning it can survive years without flying.
It burned through 87 million euros in the three months to
the end of March and said it continued to focus on reducing
costs. The airline recently replaced its flight operations chief
after an investigation into how it made redundancies earlier in
the pandemic.
(Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and
Paul Sandle)
