Wizz Air, Ryanair see robust flight bookings for winter

LONDON/DUBLIN (Reuters) – Chief executives of Ryanair and Wizz Air said on Thursday the budget airlines are set for strong bookings in the next few months as travellers prepare to fly freely for the first time in three years over Christmas since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Christmas is very strong. At the moment, Christmas bookings are running ahead of where they were pre-COVID in 2019 and pricing is ahead by a low double-digit percentage,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary told reporters.

Earlier this week, he had said that the winter for Ryanair was “amazing”.

Separately, Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi told a conference in Gibraltar that bookings at Wizz Air were intact for the next three months.

(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska, Graham Fahy, Padraic Halpin and Ilona Wissenbach; Editing by Jan Harvey and Arun Koyyur)