"Resilient" package holiday pricing coupled with "strong late booking momentum" is making up for "softer" flight-only ticket price yields, Jet2.com and Jet2holidays has revealed.
In a trading update issued on Thursday (5 September), Jet2 said booked package holiday customers, to date, were up by 8% year-on-year and now represented more than 70% of all departing passengers.
Flight-only Jet2.com passengers, meanwhile, are up by 17%.
"The continued demand momentum has served to offset softer flight-only net ticket yields, although package holiday pricing remains resilient and continues to show a modest increase on last year," said Jet2.
On-sale seat capacity for summer 2024 now stands at 17.17 million – 12.4% higher than summer 2023 and slightly ahead of the sum Jet2 reported as being on sale in July when it revealed its full-year results.
Load factors, though, continue to lag behind summer 2023, although the gap is closing.
"The months of July and August experienced strong late booking momentum with September currently showing a similar trend," said Jet2. "As a result, average load factor is now 1.2 percentage points (ppts) behind summer 2023 at the same point."
As of 11 July, the rate was 1.8ppts behind.
Average load factors for winter 2024/25, though, are running 0.8ppts ahead of winter 2023/24 at the same point despite a 15% increase in winter seat capacity to 5.14 million.
Jet2 said its package holiday mix for winter, versus flight-only, is currently up by 1.9ppts against last winter "with pricing at this early stage showing a modest increase" for both package and flight-only.
The group said for the year to-date, it was continuing to trade in line with expectations.
However, it warned that owing to the ongoing late booking trend and with two months of its summer season still to operate, plus "the majority" of winter 2024/25 seat capacity still to sell, it would not be providing guidance on group profitability for the year to 31 March 2025. An update will follow on 21 November.
Jet2 said it continued to be of the believe that its package proposition was "the right product for price conscious customers".
It has already put summer 2025 on sale with an approximately 6.4% increase in seat capacity; load factors, albeit at a very early stage, are running "slightly ahead" of summer 2024 at the same point.
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