Wizz Air Hungary Ltd. is a Hungarian low-cost airline with its head office on the property of Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport in Budapest. The airline typically uses secondary airports serving many cities across Europe, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. It has the largest fleet of any Hungarian airline, although it is not a flag carrier, and currently serves 35 countries. Its Jersey-based parent company, Wizz Air Holdings Plc, is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Hungarian ultra-low-cost carrier Wizz Air announced its December and overall 2022 passenger figures on Tuesday. And it makes for pleasant reading for Jószef Váradi and his colleagues. The budget airline doubled its figures from 2021 and carried 15% more people over last year compared to the pre-pandemic 2019.

In total, Wizz Air carried 45.6 million passengers over the 12 months of 2022. This was up from 21.7 million in 2021, which was still marred by pandemic-related restrictions and variants of COVID-19.

December was particularly significant, with holiday travelers bumping figures to 4.18 million, or 27% higher compared to the same period in 2019 and 58.4% compared to 2021. Meanwhile, the airline also managed to reduce its CO2 emissions by 13.3% in December last year compared to the same month the year before. Overall capacity for 2022 came in at 52.7 million seats with a load factor of 86.7%. The corresponding figures for 2021 and 2019 were 28.9 million seats and 75.2% and 42.5 million seats, and 93.6%, respectively.

Wizz Air prides itself on being “one of the most sustainable airlines in Europe.” Fleet renewal and the latest technology aircraft are at the heart of Wizzair’s sustainability strategy. The mainline carrier currently operates a fleet of 153 aircraft – 66 of which are neo jets – with an average of only 5.4 years, according to data from ch-aviation. It also has substantial orders for more Airbus A320neo family aircraft, waiting to take nearly 300 more.

Over the 12 rolling months ending on December 31, 2022, Wizz Air managed to lower its CO2 emissions per passenger kilometer to 55.2 grams from 65.3 grams the year before, representing a decrease of 15.4%.