Chief Executive Officer, Jet2
Jet2 boss: 'Don't gamble on a strong lates season'
'Don't gamble on a strong lates season, get the bookings in while you can'
Lucy Huxley caught up with Jet2.com & Jet2holidays' Steve Heapy at the operators annual conference in Portugal
About Steve Heapy
Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2Holidays, has been active in expanding the company's operations, including the launch of a new base at London Luton Airport in April 2025, which he described as the company's 13th base. Heapy stated that Jet2 has a history of growing quickly at its bases and expressed hope to do the same at Luton. He also discussed the company's financial performance, noting that Jet2 had increased its ATOL license to 5.85 million customers, making it the UK's largest tour operator, a position he attributed to the company's focus on being "the best" rather than "the biggest." Heapy has been a vocal critic of government taxation and sustainability policies. He argued that the UK government's Emissions Trading Scheme raised approximately £450 million but said the funds should be "ring fenced and used specifically for green or decarbonizing projects." He warned that rising taxes on aviation would price lower-income consumers out of flying, stating that "flying will become the preserve of the rich and privileged." During the COVID-19 pandemic, Heapy expressed frustration with government travel restrictions, describing the removal of Portugal from the green list as "devastated, angry, confused" and calling for more decisive action. He has also emphasized the importance of cash reserves and financial robustness, advising against gambling on a strong late-season market and urging the industry to build long-term businesses capable of weathering disruptions.
Transcript (13 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
Well hello again everyone. Welcome to our latest webcast that we're bringing you from Travel Weekly, and it's not in our bedrooms. We are in Portugal. I'm with Steve Heapy, the CEO of Jet2holidays and Jet2.com. We are at the Hotel Guarana in the Algarve. If you're watching, Jose, thank you so much. Fantastic hospitality. Your team has been amazing, and we're delighted to be here and see your hotel. But yeah, we're here for your annual conference. You've got 358, about 350 independent travel agents, yes, having a great time. We've had a really good few days. You've been on stage a couple of times talking about lots of things. I want to pick up on a couple of them so that we can share this with people who haven't been here. I think one of the key things you talked about today was not gambling on a strong January. We've had lots of leaders of businesses being quite foolish and quite confident about January, but I think you were sort of maybe saying be a bit more cautious, bring that booking curve forward, and you're saying that as a piece of advice not just for you as a company but for agents that are selling.
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Steve Heapy1:00
Yeah, well, I think the last three years has been unusual and somewhat unpredictable, and we can't gamble on January being normal. Why would January be normal when the last three Januaries have been? We don't want to gamble, and we're treating November and December like it's January. I urge our independent travel agent partners to do the same. Don't gamble on a strong late season. Get the bookings in while you can and get some certainty into your business. So I think your advice was that they should be marketing now, not just waiting and doing everything they can to show the value and get customers to come in. I don't accept that November and December is always quiet and you don't get many bookings and it's a time for getting ready for January. Get ready now and start selling.
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Interviewer1:49
Yeah, well, I think a lot of that is you talked about the economic headwinds and the reason uncertainty. You mentioned of course we had... There's still a lot going on in the outside world and energy bills. People will have expensive bills dropping on the door of staff. They've had them in October. There's November, December, January, February. It's cold in the UK. Energy bills will go up and people will be paying a lot more. It may make them think twice or you give her their purchase. So sorry about the music. We've got quite an exciting thing going on tonight.
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Steve Heapy2:26
Yeah, exactly. So we've got the night through, so I'm sorry about all the rehearsal that's going on.
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Interviewer2:31
All right. Now you talked a lot today about the importance of the cash cushion. Yeah, hope laser focused on that throughout the pandemic and you were urging agents to do that as well because it enables you to then continue doing, I think, four things: look after your people, refunding customers in a timely manner, you obviously invested in opening new bases, Crystal, and then of course you did that massive aircraft order. So just talk to us a little bit about that and then as we're looking at some of them.
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Steve Heapy2:59
Yeah, I think cash is important. It's the most important thing in the business. The fact that we have the passion, we could refund our customers unlike many other companies in the travel industry. They kept their customers' cash. Why would you keep money for a product you can't deliver? We wanted to give it back. It also allowed us, as you said, to invest in a new base and in the aircraft and look after our people. So I think laser focus on cash all year round is a very wise thing to do because the travel industry has always been cyclical. It suffers from a lot of ups and downs. We've got to be prepared for when things do get a bit quieter and have some cash reserves to allow us to get through it.
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Interviewer3:47
Yeah, and we talked about those aircraft today. And a couple of people always ask you if you're going to go long haul. The aircraft you've ordered are not capable of flying to London, instead of Bermuda would be as far as they could go. So they're not for long haul. You said never say never, but the point you made was there's still so much to go for in the Med and you're already the largest in the Mediterranean, biggest tour operator. And you think there's a lot more and you said you had a couple of destinations you're looking at.
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Steve Heapy4:14
There's a lot more to do in all the destinations we serve. We've got ambitions to grow in all of those. We've gone a lot in Greece and Turkey in the last 24 months and maybe a couple of new destinations as well. We don't want to think about long haul when there's so much opportunity in the Mediterranean. The aircraft we've ordered are Airbus A321 Neo aircraft, the greenest aircraft in its class. So we're going to be lowering our carbon footprint. Maybe long haul one day, but for the moment, there's a lot more to do in the Mediterranean.
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Interviewer4:52
Absolutely. And it's interesting because you were outlining all these challenges that might be ahead, but you're still investing. You're talking about how you've got to keep investing in the whole product, so it might be destinations, but you're looking to really keep improving what you're offering. Well, you have to.
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Steve Heapy5:06
We've won the Travel Weekly all the awards over the last couple of years and the TripAdvisor awards, etc. And we're not complacent. You've got to constantly keep advancing, constantly keep trying to be the best. Maybe at the top of the tour operator football, you don't just sit back and think we're brilliant. You've got to realize that all the other teams are going to be trying to catch you up. So we've got to stay at the top, we've got to stay laser focused on customer service and keep doing what we do.
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Interviewer5:41
Okay, finally, because I know we've got to get ready for the evening event. Agents, you talked today about how they now represent 25, 26% of your business. Yes, sorry about this. And they previously had opened up to about 32% I think. I mean, clearly we had some contraction in that in the market there, but you were saying there is a real opportunity and there really is loads of opportunity.
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Steve Heapy6:08
Yeah, loads of opportunity. I mean, we're sorry in the pandemic, but high streets closed and travel agents didn't do any business that came in on foot. Some of them changed the model and started doing things online, etc. But the percentage of travel agents booking fell quite significantly for obvious reasons, but it's back again. So the travel agent model is still very strong and very relevant today. And I think there's a hell of a lot more we can do with travel agents because our independent travel agent partners provide great service. They can build up excitement, anticipation, and closure of sale, something that you can't necessarily do on a website. So there's lots to do with the independent travel agents, and we've had some great conversations with people here this week. And I think it's going to be a very bright future for us all.
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Interviewer7:00
All right, we'll finish there because he's actually going to go and judge the Jet2 Holidays Got Talent competition, where a number of agency or the conference will be singing for your vote. Yes, I am Simon Cowell tonight. Will you be wearing brown shoes? Another time. But anyway, we're really grateful. Thank you for inviting us to be with you. It's been fantastic to see so many agents here who clearly really enjoyed. Thank you. Cheers.