Geneva, 9 November 2016: Wizz Air Holdings Plc (“Wizz Air” or “the Company”), the largest low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe (“CEE”), today issues unaudited results for the six months to 30 September 2016 (“first half” or “H1”) for the Company as a whole, and separately for its airline (“Airline”) and tour operator (“Wizz Tours”) business units1.

RECORD H1 PROFITABILITY AND STRONG BALANCE SHEET
· Total revenue increased 10.1% to €921.2 million:
o Ticket revenues increased 4.1% to €567.2 million.
o Ancillary revenues grew 21.3% to €354.0 million.
· Profit for the period (IFRS) was a record €253.3 million in H1, a year on year increase of 39.1%.
· Underlying profit after tax was a record €231.6 million in H1, a year on year increase of 12.5%.
· Total cash at the end of September 2016 was €935.3 million of which €805.5 million was free cash.

AIRLINE AND WIZZ TOURS
New segmental reporting introduced to illustrate the financial performance of the Airline and Wizz Tours business units.
· Airline: First half KPI performance:
o Total unit revenue declined 8.5% to 4.24 euro cents per available seat kilometre (ASK).
o Total unit costs fell by 11.0% to 3.08 euro cents per ASK.
o Ex-fuel unit costs lower by 0.1% to 2.18 euro cents per ASK.
o Fuel unit costs fell by 29.8% to 0.89 euro cents per ASK.
o Underlying net profit margin expansion of 0.7ppt to 25.4%
· Wizz Tours: First six months package holiday revenues of €11.9 million.

LEADING POSITION IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
· Passengers carried increased 17.4% to 12.5 million securing Wizz Air’s position as CEE’s leading low cost carrier.
· Network has continued to grow with the opening of three new bases in Iasi (Romania), Sibiu (Romania) and Kutaisi (Georgia) and the announcement of its 26th base in Chișinău (Moldova) opening in March 2017.
· Wizz Air started 54 new routes in H1 and now offers more than 450 routes to 38 countries from 26 bases.
· Fleet expansion with six Airbus A321 aircraft added during H1 taking the fleet to 73 aircraft, a mix of 63 A320s and 10 A321s.
· Average aircraft age of 4.3 years, one of the youngest fleets of any major European airline.
· Wizz Discount Club membership exceeded 1,000,000 by the end of H1, year-on-year growth of 54%.

DEVELOPMENTS DURING THE FIRST HALF
· Introduced a new cadet program in order to secure a pipeline of future Wizz Air pilots.
· Launched the new wizzair.com website across all platforms and introduced a unique three-step express booking option.
· Obtained Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certification from IATA, the global benchmark in airline safety recognition.
· No signs of demand weakness on routes to/from the UK on the back of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (“Brexit”). The negative translation effect on British pound revenues due to Brexit in the first half is estimated at €6.6m, this was absorbed by the strength of the rest of our network.

József Váradi, Wizz Air Chief Executive said:

“I’m pleased to report another strong all-round performance by Wizz Air during the first six months of our financial year ended 31 March 2017, which has seen passenger numbers increase 17% to 12.5 million passengers and profit margins grow. In the same period, we announced 70 new routes to/from 28 different countries, highlighting not only the significant opportunities available to us in Central and Eastern Europe but also the diversity of our network growth.

We remain highly committed to the UK market and continue to deliver double-digit growth on our UK network. Nevertheless our highly diversified network enabled us to quickly absorb capacity we reallocated in reaction to the weak sterling following the Brexit vote.

Looking forward, while we expect fares to continue falling across the sector over the full year on the back of low fuel prices, our ability to continue to reduce ex-fuel costs means we can re-confirm our previously stated full year guidance for underlying net profit of between €245 to €255 million.

Our ultra-low cost model, reinforced with a delivery stream of brand new A321 aircraft, gives us a clear cost advantage versus most of our rivals. We have a strong balance sheet, proven management team, best-in-class fleet and the leading market position in CEE. This winning formula leaves Wizz Air well placed to continue to deliver significant growth and returns for our shareholders".

FULL YEAR OUTLOOK

Wizz Air today reiterates the guidance provided to the market in its trading update on 20 July 2016. With the continued expansion of its network, Wizz Air estimates that it will now grow capacity in terms of ASKs by around 18% – 20% in the 2017 financial year, split approximately 20% in H1 and between 18% – 20% in the second half of the financial year. As previously indicated, lower fuel prices are feeding through to lower airfares and management anticipates this downward trend to persist well into 2017.

Nonetheless the strong H1 financial performance against challenging market conditions, combined with solid bookings for the third quarter, are encouraging and the Company expects to report an underlying net profit for the full year (excluding exceptional items) in the range of between €245 million to €255 million. Wizz Air’s current expectations for full year performance are summarised below.