Heapy, Jet2.com and Jet2holidays chief executive, told the airline and operator’s annual VIP conference for agents on Thursday (25 November) the sustainability movement – as well as inflation – now posed an "existential threat" to travel’s future.
"We are working very hard on sustainability," said Heapy. "We’ve produced our strategy... and the worst thing we could do it fight it [the movement]. But if we’re not careful, we [the airline industry] will become the whipping boy.
"They’ll put more tax on flights. We want to make sure we pay our fair share, and that we’re not unduly penalised. It’s a real threat."
Heapy said the effect of undue tax increases on aviation would be to push up air fares and therefore reduce the number of flights. "It’s the easiest way [for government] to reduce CO2," he said. "But we can’t let them keep putting taxes up. It’s the most worrying thing for the next two years.
"[Sustainability] is the only thing people are talking about. And travel is an easy target. In northern Europe, we’ve had the flight shaming movement. In schools, it’s becoming part of the curriculum. These young people are being conditioned to become anti-flying."
Heapy said while there had been some efforts to align industry thinking on sustainability, it would take a much wider effort involving the UK’s airlines and airports, Abta, the CBI and others to produce a lobby powerful enough to put the requisite pressure on government.
"We need to come up with a coherent lobbying strategy," said Heapy. "We must lobby in an effective and coordinated way. I believe in strength in numbers. These bodies are all separate though and represent many interests. This is an existential threat. We will become the whipping boys of the economy."
Jet2’s work on sustainability will filter down to the trade, Heapy insisted. "we are lucky enough to be able to employ a sustainability director and team, we have consultants working for us on this too, and we’ve got people in Westminster and Brussels," he said, adding Jet2 would feed its learnings to travel partners so they can take smaller, inexpensive steps to become more sustainable.
"Further down the track", Heapy identified inflation as another issue looming on the horizon. "Inflation is at a 13-year high, and there are labour shortages affecting travel businesses," he said.
"It’s going to be tough for a few years, we are not out of the woods. The market has got stronger, but in the last seven to 10 days, it has weakened due to talk of lockdown in Europe, so the next few weeks will be tough too. Price won’t decide whether people book, it will be consumer confidence."
