Jet2 welcomes ‘booking momentum’ as it doubles down on package holidays

Budget airline and leisure group Jet2 has welcomed a late bout of” booking momentum” in July and August, and doubled down on its strategy to ramp up its package holiday offering.

The Aim-listed carrier, which in July hiked its dividend after reporting record passenger numbers, said it had maintained its momentum throughout late summer in a trading update ahead of its Annual General Meeting (AGM).

On sale seat capacity hit 17.7m seat in Summer 2024, 12.4 per cent higher than last year’s busy season and a marginal improvement on the numbers reported in July’s preliminary results.

The UK’s third largest airline said that July and August brought “strong late booking momentum” and early signs were that September would show a “similar trend”. Booked package holiday numbers were up eight per cent on the year, and now represent a total of 70.2 per cent of the firm’s total passengers, it said.

The London-listed firm, which flies from 12 UK airports to over 65 destinations in Europe, added that its winter forward bookings looked “encouraging”, with vacancy numbers similar despite a 15 per cent increase in capacity to 5.14m seats.

In a sign of its longer term aspirations, Jet2 reaffirmed its focus on package holidays as being “the right product for price conscious customers”. Having established itself predominantly as an airline, its package holiday offering has become the dominant revenue raiser at Leeds-based firm, founded over 40 years ago.