Travel restrictions continue to hamper recovery at Jet2

Leisure travel group Jet2 made a pre-tax loss of £205.8m for the half year ended 30 September 2021, as fragile consumer confidence caused by pandemic-related travel restrictions impacted on bookings.

In its unaudited interim results for the period, the Leeds-headquartered company added that its revenues were up 43% to £429.6m (2020: £299.9m).

Total loss for the period after taxation was £163.5m (2020: £68.7m).

Jet2 says the first three months of the financial year saw little change in the significant challenges facing the Leisure Travel industry, with no scheduled flying activity in the period from 1 April to 24 June 2021.

But following the recent dissolution of the Government’s Green and Amber travel lists from 4 October and the easing of passenger testing requirements, Jet2 says forward bookings for winter 21/22 have been markedly stronger and average load factors much improved.

The business notes: “Bookings for summer 2022, for which package holiday bookings are displaying a materially higher mix of the total, are encouraging, with average load factors ahead of summer 2019 at the same point.

“Given these promising trends, we remain optimistic that in summer 2022 we will experience a return to previously normal operations and customer volumes.”

Philip Meeson, executive chairman, said: “The Travel industry continues to be subject to a range of cost pressures most notably in relation to fuel and carbon costs.

“Additionally, we expect the competitive pricing environment being experienced for winter 2021/22 to continue.

“We will also make necessary investment in our own operations in the remainder of this financial year, including the increasing cost of retaining and attracting colleagues in readiness for our flying programme expansion in the summer 2022 season, plus marketing spend to drive customer bookings.

“As a result, and as is typical for the business, further losses are to be expected in the second half.

“Nonetheless, visibility as to the full year financial outturn remains limited and will very much depend on the continued rollout of vaccines, no further adverse Covid-19 developments and an uninterrupted winter 2021/22 flying programme.”