Jet2 made a £356 million post-tax profit over the summer, reversing the £163.5m loss it made in the summer of 2021.
Its profit for the six months to the end of September was also well up on 2019, when it made £278.6m.
It had increased its seat capacity by 14% compared to 2019 and sold more than 90%, with almost 66% of passengers buying packages rather than cheaper flight-only deals, compared to just 53% pre-pandemic.
However, Jet2’s interim report, released today, shows that widespread disruption over the summer cost it more than £50m.
Even though Jet2 says that, according to flight intelligence company OAG, it was the only UK airline not to cancel any flights in July and August, it admitted some customers ‘still faced frustrating delays’ as its operations were affected by the broader disruption across the aviation sector.
“Regrettably, this resulted in Jet2 incurring delay, compensation and customer expenses reimbursement costs in excess of £50m under UK (EU) Regulation 261/2004, which was materially higher than in summer 2019,” it said.
“In addition, our inflight retail financial performance was weaker than expected, due to product supply chain issues early in the summer season, plus poor onboard product availability caused by resource constraints at our third party inflight retail provider.”
It added: “Given these very challenging circumstances, the Board is hugely appreciative of all our colleagues’ tremendous efforts and support over recent months.”
Jet2 described winter 2022/23 bookings as ‘encouraging’ and pricing ‘robust’, adding that it is on track to exceed current average market expectations for group pre-tax profit for the year ending in March 2023.
It has 5% more seats on sale than for summer 2022, which is 20% more than in 2019. Average load factors are ‘broadly in line with summer 2019’ and pricing ‘strong’, it said
“However, the Group faces input cost pressures including fuel, carbon, a strengthened US dollar and wage increases, plus investment to ensure our colleagues can thrive and have a balanced lifestyle, further underpinning our operational resilience,” it added.
“This leads us to conclude that margins may come under some pressure, but encouragingly the strength of our recovery post-COVID underlines our belief that customers truly cherish their weeks away in the sun and want to be properly looked after.”