Jet2 has said price rises for its flights and package holidays will be “modest” over the summer, as it tries to adjust to a trend for late booking in which customers are waiting much longer to buy tickets.
The Leeds-based company – which flies from 12 UK airports to more than 65 destinations in Europe – said that it was conscious of the pressure on consumers, and that although it was having to raise prices, its deals would remain “attractive”.
“Passengers are currently booking much closer to departure and therefore pricing for our flight-only and package holiday products must remain attractive,” Jet2 said.
The company said it had already raised the price of its package holidays by 11% to £830, on average, over the year as it tried to cover its own rising costs.
“As ever, we remain mindful of the current macroeconomic and geopolitical environments and how these may influence future consumer spending patterns,” the company added.
“However, we continue to believe that the end-to-end package holiday is a resilient and popular product which remains high on the priority list for our customers, even during uncertain economic times.”
The group reported a 43% jump in profits on Thursday to £530m for the year to March, as passenger numbers rose 9% to a record 17.7 million.
There will be some relief for holidaymakers flying out of Heathrow, after the UK regulator said it would be forcing the airport to make further cuts to passenger charges over the next two years.
The Civil Aviation Authority said Heathrow would probably have to reduce the per-passenger fee – the amount charged to airlines for each traveller they carry – by about 6% over the next two years, to £23.73 in 2025 and £23.71 in 2026.
That is only down marginally from the £25.24 cap set for this year but the issue is complicated by the fact that Heathrow had originally tried to increase the fee to £40, before losing an appeal with the competitions regulator.
Heathrow said it had experienced its busiest day ever on 30 June as more than 268,000 passengers passed through the airport – a contrast to the hit from the Covid lockdowns, for which it had been hoping to compensate through higher charges.
The chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, said: “June has seen more Heathrow records shattered including serving more passengers in a single day than ever before … We have started summer as we mean to go on.”
