No limit

A large chunk of Jet2’s success has been built with the support of travel agents, and their support was evident at the event.

Almost a third of Jet2holidays’ sales come from the trade. “Unlike some other tour operators we don’t have an upper limit on trade sales,” he says.

“We take bookings direct but we want to keep growing the trade channel, and if it became 38% or 40% that would be great.

“We have a small mark-up differential but that isn’t the same as the commission – we do make less on a travel agent booking but we can’t have our cake and eat it.

“We have hopefully brought a lot more business to these agents – we know that many of the people who see or hear our adverts on TV or radio go to an agent and ask for a Jet2 holiday.”

The firm’s growing agent support team includes a seven-strong management team and nine sales executives and support workers, and Jet2holidays is also keen to invest in agents. Each of the 16 different winners at its conference awards received a £1,000 marketing prize.

“We strongly believe in the travel trade,” continues Heapy. “Our head of trade Alan Cross is the best in the industry – he’s single-mindedly built our trade business. We genuinely try to come up with a win-win solution for both parties.”

Heapy claims dynamic packaging can be “bloody dangerous” for agents, often meaning they are taking on risks that they don’t need to.

Currently, Heapy is most excited about bringing more trade to agents in the south-east, following the arrival of flights to 21 European destinations from Stansted in March 2017.

“There have been two issues for agents in the east of England and the north-east of London: they’ve done a lot of dynamic packaging; and they’ve seen Stansted airport dominated by one airline, with a severe lack of tour operator product there,” he says.

“They’ve often found themselves booking customers living in places like Cambridge and Chelmsford to Gatwick, as Stansted hasn’t been perceived as a tour operator airport. That’s why we’ve gone in.”

Resort focus

Jet2 currently has no plans to fly long-haul, and no plans to take on its own hotels, although it is investing in resort reps, doubling the number to 500 by next summer.

“We’re an airline tour operator, and a big chunk of our profits are invested back in the airline so taking on hotels is not within our short to medium-term plans,” he said.

“Sometimes we offer exclusive hotels by default as we have all the rooms in the hotel. We don’t ask for exclusivity when we’ve got a few rooms, and we’re not frightened by the opposition.”

“All our hotels are selected by us and contracted by us, and we have an obsession with quality and health and safety.

“We have a very good relationship with hoteliers – we have the same philosophy as with travel agents – long-term strategic relationships that treat both sides with respect.”

The company’s innovations are more in the area of customer service, with a growing army of customer helpers and check-in staff at airports, as well as plans to expand its “Resort Flight Check In” service – currently in Majorca, Benidorm and Tenerife – to more destinations in 2017.

Following its expansion, Heapy says it will be a while before the airline plots any further bases.

“There’s growth in our existing nine bases,” he said. “We are winning new customers and retaining existing customers, and there’s been a renaissance in the package holiday,” he said.

“People have been sounding the death knell for agents for years, but with the well-publicised failures over the past few years and the big example this year – people are thinking again.

“We’re helping to convert dynamic packagers to package holiday bookers, with direct customers and travel agent customers.”

It sounds very much like Steve Heapy and Jet2holidays are going to have to get used to the spotlight.