A total of 11 staff who usually work as cabin crew during peak season, and one overseas rep, will aid the sales team as “promotions executives” for the next six weeks, visiting as many agents as possible.
Each promotions executive has been assigned to the regional area they would usually be based, and will give out goody bags and talk about how customers are engaging with the brand.
Jet2holidays, which has recently announced both Birmingham and Stansted airports as new bases, has seen its permanent sales team grow by three in the past six weeks. There are now a total of 14 in the team, up from 10 this time last year.
Craig Davidson, general manager trade sales, Jet2holidays, who joined the company at the beginning of October, confirmed that a second member of the on-the-road team for the Stansted catchment area was also being recruited.
“It’s all well and good adding the bases but you need to support the agents at the same time,” he said.
“Stansted is doing really well – we’re getting calls from agents in Kent, so it looks like the pull of Jet2 is even wider than the airport’s traditional catchment area.
“We have also had some well-established agents tell us that putting our material in their windows has generated new customers.”
Meanwhile, Davidson revealed that BBC Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills will be a special guest at Jet2holidays’ two upcoming conferences for third-party agents, held at the Athena Royal Beach Hotel in Cyprus, and will give talks as well as perform sets during the evening.
Each conference will host about 120 delegates, and will take place consecutively between November 28 and December 3. The first will be aimed at agents less familiar with the brand, including those from the Birmingham and Stansted areas, and the second will be aimed at the operator’s long-standing top-selling agents and will include an awards ceremony.
Jet2’s newest Boeing 737-800 will fly agents to the conferences, featuring mood lighting and a new configuration. So far Jet2 has taken delivery of 5 of these aircraft, with the remaining 25 due by April 2018.
Jet2 parent Dart Group announced last week in its half-year financial results that Jet2holidays saw revenue pass £1 billion on the back of a “strong summer season”, during which its number of package holiday passengers grew by more than a third.
