Wizz Air seek security, CFOs shift towards the cloud and Flybe struggle to compete

Wizz Air have become the latest airline to take steps in guaranteeing its continuity in a post-Brexit UK. The Hungarian airline have applied for an Air Operator’s Certificate and Operating Licence for Wizz Air UK, among fears of upcoming turbulence in the UK aviation environment.

This comes after Wizz Air CEO, József Váradi’s, warnings earlier this year that the UK could exit the EU prior to agreeing a bilateral arrangement, securing airline’s operational continuity. The current uncertainty in the aviation climate has the potential to disrupt intra-European flights for airlines who fail to forecast.

To read the full Financial Times article, click here.

Adaptive Insights’ latest CFO Indicator Report reveals that 73% of CFOs now trust the cloud for financial data, up from 33% in 2014.

Why the sudden technology shift in finance?

The report explores the increase in CFOs knowledge of data and technology and the new endeavour to implement a ‘single source of truth’ and company-wide financial transparency. ITWire describe this concept as a state where:

“information is keyed once, flows automatically between systems where it is needed, and for any specific piece of data there is a known, unique system that can be pointed to as the master record for that data, even if it is replicated to other systems.”

This new data represents a reduction in on-premises spending, a growing adoption rate of cloud technology and ultimately, a move towards a strategy-focused financial function.

For the full article, and additional key findings, click here.

As further evidence of the current uncertainty in UK aviation, British regional airline, Flybe, have warned that first-half profit will be lower than expected.

The announcement was quickly followed by a fall in share price, reaching drops of up to 18%.

In a move to improve aircraft performance and reduce costs, Flybe will soon review its aircraft maintenance strategy, with CEO, Christine Ourmieres-Widener, insisting that the increase in maintenance is not a reflection of overall reliability performance.

According to analysts at house broker, Liberum:

“Until there is greater clarity on maintenance costs, along with further evidence of capacity cuts supporting better unit revenue trends, we believe the shares will struggle to perform,”

Flybe must now focus on actively planning and optimising its financial modelling. Only then can the airline establish a position where planning is based on profitability rather than costs.

To read more, click here.