The low-cost Budapest-based airline company WizzAir recorded group-level losses of EUR 9.5m in the business year ended in March 2009, while the company has so far said it is profitable, the business daily Napi Gazdasag reported on Friday, quoting the on-line issue of the Czech newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes.

The Czech online paper reported that the company never achieved profits over the five years of its operation, and it has now accumulated losses of EUR 78m. At the same time, WizzAir has spectacularly increased the number of its passengers.

WizzAir vice president John Stephenson first declined to comment, Napi Gazdasag said, and then said the Hungarian unit was profitable and only the Ukrainian and Bulgarian companies were loss-makers.