Wizz Air Net Profit Declines by 41.5% during FY25

Hungarian low cost carrier Wizz Air on Thursday said that its net profit stood at $244.26 million during the financial year ending 31 March 2025 as against $417.84 million in 2023-24, representing a 41.5% y-o-y decline.

The airline reported a comprehensive profit of $257.88 million, missing its target of $285.49 million to $342.58 million. EBITDA, meanwhile, came in at $1.26 billion, a decrease of $67.26 million compared to the prior fiscal year.

Wizz Air shares were down around 23.5% in daily trading just after 10am CEST in daily trading.

The airline’s total revenue showed a 3.8% rise on the year, at $6.05 billion, and the airline reported a record traffic of 63.4 million passengers, Wizz Air said while releasing the financial results this morning.

While fuel expenses decreased by 3.1% to around $2.03 billion, compared with $2.11 billion in the previous year, the operating expenses (excluding fuel) increased by 18.8% to $3.77 billion as against $3.17 billion in F24.

Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi described the fiscal year 2024325 with two words: resilience and transformation.

“In an environment where rare challenges have become recurrent, Wizz Air has evolved structurally, embedding increased flexibility into our standard operating model. Wizz Air is a more resilient business today,” he said.

Challenges Aplenty

The airline faced several challenges during the year and the most important one was an obligation to ground its Airbus jets because of faulty engines.

At end of financial year, there were 42 grounded aircraft due to GTF engine inspections and three grounded aircraft in Ukraine. By the end of the first half of the next fiscal year, it expects to have about 34 planes grounded, the airline said.

“”Despite the unproductivity of a grounded fleet, we successfully delivered a second consecutive year of profitability. We have the benefit of more than a year of experience operating under these unique circumstances – conditions airlines would never experience when demand exceeds supply,” he said.

According to him, the number of grounded aircraft will start reducing in both absolute and relative terms and that was why they have reached a transformation point. The Available Seat Kilometers (ASK) capacity is back to growing due to this and due to the increase in the delivery volume of new aircraft from Airbus.

The percentage of grounded aircraft relative to total fleet continues to improve, allowing them to focus on the key elements of our strategy, winning market share, driving leadership positions and deploying our expertise to mitigate challenges in our sector.

“We will not relent on defending the ultra-low-cost business model, delivering profitable growth and ultimately stakeholder value,” he said.

Fleet Update

During F25, Wizz Air took delivery of 26 new A321neo aircraft and also secured three former Wizz Air aircraft on dry leases, while 6 A320ceo aircraft were redelivered, ending the fiscal year with a total fleet of 231 aircraft: 37x A320ceo, 41x A321ceo, 6x A320neo and 147x A321neo.

The airline also added eight wet-leased aircraft for summer 2024 operations, providing additional capacity in F25. The last wet-leased aircraft were returned in October 2024. The new aircraft delivered in F25 were financed through 16 sale and leaseback arrangements, four Japanese Operating Leases with Call Options (JOLCOs) and 6 financial lease structures.