Summer holiday bookings have bounced back recently after the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East, the package holiday operator Jet2 has said.
The company, which flies about 20 million people every year, said its summer bookings are up by 7.1% compared with this time last year and the average load factor – which measures its available seating capacity filled with paying passengers – is up 1.2 percentage points.
“There is still a massive amount of people who want to go away,” the chief executive, Steve Heapy, said. “But they have delayed their purchase because they wanted to see what happened with the conflict.
“The market is now in good shape, and consumers are desperate to go away and perhaps sleep in a room with air conditioning.”
The travel industry had said that many holidaymakers were putting off booking their trips this summer because of fears around higher jet fuel bills and disruptions triggered by the war in the Middle East.
But there has been a strong recovery in recent weeks across all of Jet2’s destinations, the company said. Shares in Jet2, which is listed in London, jumped by about 10% in early trading on Wednesday after the comments, despite signs of renewed tensions in the Middle East.
“Turkey, Cyprus, eastern Greek islands, Bulgaria and parts of north Africa have rebounded the most in percentage terms, but all destinations have increased,” Heapy said.
A new EU border check system has also caused hours-long delays at big airports in continental Europe, with airlines saying some flights are leaving only half full.
Heapy said that it was “wise to turn up a little earlier than normal”, and that some Jet2 passengers had been subject to longer queues at immigration and passport control. However, he said that no Jet2 flights had departed leaving passengers behind.
This week, the EU rejected calls by airports and airlines to suspend the implementation of new fingerprinting and facial recognition border controls even though it admits there are “20 difficult spots” with queue chaos.
Just a week before the peak summer holiday season starts, EU officials said the system was “not perfect” but it would tell travel industry representatives that a full suspension was “not needed” and “not possible”.
Holiday parks and hotels in the UK have also reported a jump in summer bookings, as many UK holidaymakers opt to stay closer to home.
Research from the UK travel industry body Abta found that 84% of those planning a holiday abroad are opting for a short-haul trip this summer, and 30% of people said they would book just two-to-four weeks before their trip.
