Jet2 revealed today that it thinks it made a pre-tax loss of between £378m and £383m in the last financial year.

However, it said it still had £2.23bn in cash at the year-end, on 31 March, with an ‘own cash’ balance (excluding customer deposits) of £1.08bn.

It said seat capacity for this summer is about 14% higher than for summer 2019 with load factors lagging 2.5 percentage points behind pre-pandemic levels.

In a trading update, Jet2 plc said it is seeing ‘booking momentum accelerating, customer confidence continuing to grow and pricing robust’.

It is also seeing growth in the number of customers opting for packages rather than flight-only, with package holiday sales accounting for 12 percentage points more of the total number of bookings than in 2019.

“We have worked hard to plan recovery for summer 2022, investing well ahead of the season to ensure we have adequate resources to operate with our normal levels of customer care.

“We also self-handle at many of our key bases and are therefore not reliant on third parties for these aspects of our operations,” it said, no doubt alluding to the recent chaos at UK airports, including Manchester.

Jet2 also said it is 95% hedged for jet fuel for summer 2022 and approximately 65% hedged for winter 22/23, in line with its normal policy.

“Jet2.com and Jet2holidays are well-recognised national brands with a loyal leisure travel customer following and we confidently believe that opportunities for financially strong, resilient and trusted operators will only increase,” added the statement.

“With our strong ‘own cash’ balance as at 31 March 2022 of £1.08bn, we are well placed to respond now that the leisure travel market has fully re-opened.”

The Group will announce its preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2022 on 7 July 2022, at which point it will provide a fuller outlook for the summer 2022 trading period.