Wizz Air Passenger Numbers Jump 12% in March

Low-cost carrier Wizz Air's (LON: WIZZ) shares edged higher at the start of Wednesday's session after the company reported its latest passenger numbers for March. 

The company revealed passenger numbers in March were 4.79 million, up 12% from the 4.27 million in March 2023. 

The load factor, which measures capacity utilisation and whether there are full planes with most seats occupied, came in at 90.8%. Wizz Air said this was impacted by one-directional VFR traffic during the Easter period. 

The capacity for March 2024 was 5.26 million, up 13.6% from 4.63 million during March last year. 

At the time of writing, Wizz Air shares are up around 0.62% at 2,133.16p per share. However, the stock is down 2.9% so far this year and has declined 24.6% over the last 12 months.

In March, Exane BNP Paribas analyst James Hollins downgraded Wizz Air to Underperform from Neutral with a 2,200p price target, telling investors that elevating supply constraints are not subsiding for the global airlines.

On the other hand, in February, Wizz Air was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Deutsche Bank with a new price target of 2,300p, up from 1,800p per share. The bank told investors that there is “some light at the end of the runway” given the actions Wizz has taken. 

Deutsche Bank added that compensation from Pratt & Whitney can possibly mitigate GTF weakness. 

Overall, data from TipRanks shows that the current consensus rating for Wizz Air is Hold, with four out of eight analysts assigning the stock a Neutral rating. Two have assigned it a Buy rating, and another two see it as a Sell. The average price target is 2,721.43p, representing a potential more than 25% upside.