Jet2 holidays: Airline's profit soars to £661m as it charges holidaymakers 11% more for their getaways

Jet2 has seen a major jump in its profits due to charging customers more for their holidays. The airline announced on Thursday (23 November) that the average price of a Jet2holiday package rose 11% to £855 in the six months to the end of September which helped the business’s pre-tax profit to rise from £451m to £661m in the six-month period.

The business also saw its net ticket yield for customers only buying flights increase by 18% to a little over £124 which helped its profits. Jet2’s CEO Steve Heapy said the firm is “pleased to have delivered another strong financial performance during the first half of the financial year despite the well-publicised external challenges faced”.

The airline saw its profits rise despite it taking a £14 million hit from the summer’s air traffic control chaos, wildfires and flooding on Greek islands. Its profits only increased because of the extra amount it charged its customers.

More than a quarter of all flights to and from UK airports were cancelled on 28 August, a bank holiday Monday and a peak period for air travel, as National Air Traffic Services (Nats) were unable to process flight plans automatically. More than a quarter of flights were cancelled that day, affecting around 250,000 people.

Nats’ failure came soon after the chaos caused by wildfires across much of Europe amid searing heatwaves at the end of July. The Greek island of Rhodes was particularly badly affected, with thousands of Britons having to be rescued.

Jet2 said its staff worked hard to help affected holidaymakers through the “significant disruption caused by the Rhodes and Nats incidents”. The group said the wildfire disruption saw its summer holiday capacity drop slightly to 15.26m air passenger seats, from 15.29m reported in early July, but was still 7.3% higher than a year earlier.

Despite these problems, it does not seem to have put off customers from travelling next summer. Jet2 has made more seats available and bookings for the summer ahead are slightly higher than they were at this point a year ago.

Mr Heapy added: “Our customer-first ethos runs deep throughout our company culture, with people, service, profits our guiding principles, and our commitment to an innovative, value-for-money product and exceptional customer service is unwavering. As a result, we remain confident that as a customer-focused and much-trusted holiday provider, our customers will continue to travel with us to the sun spots of the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands and to European leisure cities.”