European low-cost carrier, Wizz Air has reported a record first quarter and has subsequently raised its profit forecast for the year by as much as €20 million.

The Hungary based carrier reported a record first quarter profit of €33.9 million, an increase of 14.7 percent, while total revenues were up by 21 percent to €1.2 billion. As a result, Wizz Air is raising its full-year net profit expectations to €175-185 million – a €10 million improvement on previous estimates.

Wizz achieved the performance for the three months for the three months to June 30 despite a €5.5 million impact from the earlier Easter holiday period.

József Váradi, Wizz Air chief executive said: “The first quarter has been an exciting period for Wizz Air.

“We have continued to grow our network and increase our passenger numbers throughout the period while maintaining an industry leading, ultra-low cost base,” he added.

Passengers carried increased 20 percent to 4.9 million, while the airline’s route network has continued to grow with the opening of two new bases and 22 new routes.

“Today we are pleased to announce a record set of results for the first quarter with a strong performance against all key operating and financial performance measures,” he added.

Load factor also increased by 1.3 percentage points to 88.8 percent in the first quarter, one of the highest in the industry.

Since 2005, Wizz has grown significantly in terms of seat availability, offering a total of 2.57 million seats in 2005 which had increased to 17.48 million by 2014.

The airline’s London Luton base has the largest available seat capacity, offering approximately 1.86 million seats in 2014, up from just over 360,000 in 2005. Both bases at Budapest and Katowice have witnessed exponential growth, with Budapest increasing overall seat capacity by more than a million between 2005 and 2014. Gdansk and Warsaw have also continued to see a significant expansion in available seat capacity, while Bucharest has rapidly increased in capacity since the airline returned in 2012 after briefly serving the airport in 2007. Wizz now operates 1.16 million seats from Bucharest, a dramatic 112 percent increase in three years.