Jet2 has signalled it is on course to meet full-year profit expectations as customers have increasingly plumped for package holidays over separate flights this summer.
The Leeds-based airline and package holiday firm said package holidaymakers made up a higher proportion of all departing passengers with sales now only slightly behind pre-Covid levels. Jet2 founder and boss Philip Meeson also said the travel chaos caused by an "inexcusable" lack of preparedness among airport operators and suppliers had "abated significantly".
Mr Meeson, who was previously highly critical of airport operators, said customers were now leaving it later than before to book travel and described winter sales as "satisfactory".
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He said: "Our leisure travel business continues to benefit from the significant investment we made in preparation for the summer 2022 season, retaining over 8,000 loyal colleagues during the pandemic and substantially topping up the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme funding on a sliding scale basis up to 100% of salary for the lowest paid, recruiting and training seasonal colleagues in good time and subsequently rewarding our trusted and experienced team for their unrivalled customer service with early and meaningful salary increases.
"It is this focus on the long term differentiation of the Jet2.com and Jet2holidays brands that has enabled our on sale seat capacity for the season to remain approximately 14% higher than summer 2019, with no cancellations made due to any Jet2 resource constraints."
The holiday firm also said it was confident its package deals were what price conscious customers wanted in challenging economic times, though warned that margins may come under pressure in the short term. Earlier this month Jet2's 100 millionth customers boarded a flight.
Jet2's interim results will be published in November.
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