Jet2 staff to receive pay rise and £1k bonus despite losses

The airline and operator’s staff will be given the bonus at the end of the summer as a reward for the “difficult return to normal operations”.

The deal comes despite a slight increase in losses for the year ended 31 March 2022. In the 12 months, Jet2 lost £388.8 million before tax, compared with £369.9 million the previous year. The latest result was affected by a £12.6 million foreign exchange loss, compared to a £3.9 million gain the previous year.

Jet2 blamed last summer’s traffic light system for affecting consumer confidence. It said despite seat capacity increasing from two million to seven million, and average load factors rising from 66% to 69.2%, “fragile consumer confidence arising from the three-weekly UK government "traffic light" reviews during summer 21 meant customer bookings were significantly closer to departure than normal”. This led to a reduction in average flight-only yield of 29%.

Average flight-only price fell from £95.24 in 2021 to £67.90. Conversely, the average price of a Jet2holidays package holiday increased by 2%, from £676 to £689. Jet2 said this was “reflective of heavily discounted hotelier prices in the previous year which were passed on to consumers”. Jet2holidays package holiday customers represented 51% of the overall mix of flown passengers, compared to 58% the previous year.

It added: “Though the successful rollout of vaccines in the UK and Europe throughout 2021 signalled progress towards normality, the first three months of the financial year were very similar to those of the prior year, with extensive international travel restrictions imposed by the UK government and the group not permitted to operate any scheduled flights from 1 April to 24 June 2021.

“The removal of the traffic light system in early October heralded a brief hiatus from the impact of the virus as October and November flying operations were relatively unhindered, though this short-lived stability was derailed by the emergence of the Omicron variant in late November 2021 which led to the reimposition of international travel restrictions until early January 2022.

“The progressive easing of restrictions since, which culminated in the removal of Covid related formalities including passenger locator forms during March 2022, meant the performance for both February and March was much improved and trending towards historic seasonal norms as customer confidence to travel strengthened.”