Jet2 has announced it is on course to beat profit expectations for the current financial year after seeing a 16% rise in the first six months to the end of September.
The group made a summer pre-tax profit of £772.4 million following a 13% increase in seat capacity to 14.8 million and a 6% increase in the average package holiday price to £904 per person.
Package holidays accounted for 69.2% of Jet2’s sales, down from 70.8% last summer, and ticket yield from its flight-only bookings dipped to 1%.
In a statement, Jet2 said: “Given our seat capacity growth, the later passenger booking profile, the mix of passengers and total margin achieved, we were very pleased with this outcome.”
Over the summer, it paid £133.9m to travel agents in commission, 9% more than last summer, which it said was in line with the rise in the average package holiday price, plus more sales.
Jet2 has just over five million seats for this winter, 14% more than year, and although it still has ‘a significant proportion’ left to sell, it said it’s confident it will deliver a pre-tax profit for the year ending 31 March 2025 ahead of the market expectation of £541m.
For summer 2025, its capacity of 18.74m seats is 9% higher than this summer, including its new bases at Bournemouth and London Luton. “Bookings and pricing at this very early stage are in line with management expectations,” it added.
Recent improvements in the macro-economic environment, including falling inflation, should help ease some cost base pressures, it said, but warned the increase in the national minimum and national living wage and employers National Insurance Contributions will add £25m a year to its staff costs.
CEO Steve Heapy said the company was ‘delighted’ with the first-half results, adding: “I would also like to thank our amazing colleagues who have helped deliver this result and who are ambassadors of our People, Service, Profits guiding principles and who continue to deliver award winning, sector leading customer service on a daily basis.”
