Budget carrier Wizz Air is seeing a strong rebound in travel demand to markets such as Türkiye and Egypt, which had initially been affected due to their proximity to the conflicts in the Middle East, its CEO said Monday.
The Hungarian-based airline is also witnessing robust bookings across traditional European leisure destinations, including Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and France, Jozsef Varadi told reporters at a briefing.
In contrast, travel demand to the Middle East has dropped sharply, with passengers increasingly avoiding the region altogether, Varadi noted.
“No one wants to travel to the Middle East; passengers are not even transiting through the region,” he added.
Varadi said the airline's leisure summer schedule would be 17% larger this year, with growth focused on the Balkan and Caucasus markets, despite concerns over jet fuel supply and costs tied to the Iran war.
"We are much stronger on summer bookings this year than last year," he said, after airlines including easyJet and TUI announced drops in forward bookings and issued profit warnings in recent weeks.
European airlines are entering their first-quarter reporting season, with analysts uncertain about longer-term outlooks as jet fuel hedges start running out in the coming months.
Wizz Air is set to report its full-year results for the 2026 financial year on June 11 after it issued a profit warning in March.
Varadi said Wizz Air was 70% hedged for its fuel needs for the summer period and would receive 35 new Airbus aircraft during 2026.
The carrier was set to renew some of its hedges when they run out this summer in order to protect it against price volatility, he added.
He maintains that he doesn't think jet fuel will run out in the coming weeks. At a price of $1,500 a metric ton for jet fuel, tankers were incentivised to head to the U.S. to collect it, Varadi said, which made up for shortfalls from the Middle East, a major source of jet fuel for European carriers.
However, he does think prices could remain high even for months after the war ends.
Varadi said it was a good moment for Europe to reassess its reliance on the Middle East for fuel, especially as the crisis could lead to broader capacity cuts across the industry, intensifying in the autumn.
"If you look at the very nature of how Europe is accessing jet fuel, I mean, we are far over-dependent on the Middle East. I mean, that's kind of crazy," he said.
