EasyJet holidays CEO Garry Wilson said sales for the operator’s new Luxury Collection have ‘beaten all expectations’ since it launched last October.
Bookings for the upscale packages, the first of which will depart this April, are in the ‘high hundreds’ every week, he said.
The average booking value is £3,000, which is more than three times higher than that of its standard packages, and the highest to date was a whopping £97,000 for a group of 13.
While some in the trade were initially sceptical that easyJet holidays could match the luxury service offered by niche operators, Garry insisted any concerns were unfounded.
“The support of the trade has been fantastic, agents have really got behind it,” he said. “I think they’ve looked at resorts like Ikos, which are very popular with agents, and looked at our package prices compared to our competitors and seen that it makes sense to book with us.”
Speaking at a media event in London to celebrate easyJet’s 30th anniversary, Garry seemed genuinely surprised by the success of the Luxury Collection, which he said had been launched ‘more as a talking point for the brand’.
“We thought it would get us access to publications that don’t normally consider easyJet holidays, but sales have exceeded our expectations.”
He said easyJet included the ‘top 100’ hotels in the destinations it serves in the programme, packaging them up with its own flights, with extras such as speedy boarding and a second cabin bag included.
At the same time, it has created dedicated support on the ground for Luxury Collection customers. “We have got a 24/7 calls centre and we’ve trained a number of customer service staff to be specialists in luxury. We can really hand-hold those customers if they need it,” added Garry.
“Also, we have very good relationships with hotels because we were already providing them with scale – remember we have three million customers a year – so we know we can pick up the phone and they will respond if there is a problem. We are sure we can provide a very good service.”
EasyJet is planning to roll out its Luxury Collection to other European countries from spring 2027. “That will give us more scale and enable us to offer more to our customers,” added Garry.
He said the success of the Luxury Collection will help easyJet holidays achieve its target of £450 million profit a year, up from £250m last year. “When we launched easyJet holidays, we had a target of £100m a year, but since then our customer base has grown tenfold.
“We are very grateful for how it has been embraced by the trade.”
Looking at this year’s sales to date, Garry said easyJet holidays’ bookings had ‘shot up’ last week. The company is due to issue its official trading update for the quarter at the end of January.
