Nonetheless, executive chair Philip Meeson said on Thursday (18 November) he "remained optimistic" that Jet2 would return to "previously normal operations and customer volumes" during summer 2022, albeit while stressing the business – and the wider travel industry – would remain subject to a range of cost pressures.

These, he said, would include the increasing cost of retaining and attracting new staff, as well as the necessary levels of marketing to drive bookings. Additionally, Meeson said fuel and carbon costs would continue to bite, and that the "competitive pricing environment" seen for winter 2021/22 would continue into summer 2022.

Meeson hailed the government’s decision in early October to scrap the traffic light regime and transition from Day 2 PCR testing to lateral flow testing instead, which he said had resulted in "markedly stronger" forward bookings for winter 2021/22 and improved load factors.

Jet2 now expects winter 2021/22 seat capacity to come in only 11% down on winter 2019/20. Additionally, summer 2022 seat capacity is currently forecast to exceed 2019 levels by 13%, with more lucrative package holiday bookings making up a "materially higher" proportion of Jet2’s overall sales mix.

"Given these promising trends, we remain optimistic that in summer 2022 we will experience a return to previously normal operations and customer volumes," said Meeson. "We continue to believe that opportunities for financially strong, resilient and trusted operators will only increase."

Jet2’s £206 million pre-tax loss during the six months to 30 September compares to one of £119 million during the same period last year, with net operating expenses increasing from £411 million to £600 million. As a result, Jet2 posted a £170 million first-half operating loss, up from £111 million during the same period last year. This was despite first-half revenue recovering from £300 million in the six months to 30 September 2020 to £430 million.

The airline and operator flew 1.53 million passengers during H1 2021/22, up 55% from 990,000 a year earlier. However, load factor fell by 11.7% to just 57.3%, with Jet2 blaming the effect the government’s traffic light regime had on consumer confidence for it being unable to fill its aircraft, driving up operational losses.

"Load factors to amber destinations, primarily high-volume leisure destinations, [were] more than 20 percentage points lower than those for green destinations as customers remained anxious they could quickly be changed to red, meaning enforced quarantine on return to the UK," said Jet2.

"Additionally, fragile consumer confidence arising from the three-weekly UK government traffic light reviews undertaken throughout the period meant customer bookings were significantly closer to departure than normal, leading to a reduction in average flight-only ticket yield per passenger sector of 25% year-on-year."

Meeson, though, said he was "satisfied" with Jet2’s performance when taking into account the limited number of green destinations the business was able to operate to during the first half, and the fragility of consumer confidence around travelling to amber list countries.