This was a good week for Wizz Air to launch a distracting €499 “all you can fly” annual subscription offer. Otherwise attention might have been focused on the Hungary-based carrier’s plunging share price. Remarkably, the budget airline, once judged to be “the last great growth story in European aviation” by one City analyst, has seen its shares descend from £55 in 2021 to £12.36, virtually the lowest level since listing in London almost a decade ago.
Or remember that it was only three summers ago that Wizz made a cheeky takeover approach to easyJet. The proposal never got close to the departure lounge – easyJet knocked it away with ease and launched a rights issue to clear its pandemic financial strains – but, back then, Wizz was the larger company by a distance. It sported a stock market value of £5bn versus easyJet’s £3.25bn. Position today: £3.4bn plays £1.1bn with the hierarchy reversed.
