Steve Heapy, Jet2.com and Jet2holidays chief executive, told delegates at the Jet2holidays VIP conference (November 26-29) the business was always looking at ways to make independent agents more money.

He said there were “various levers” the company could pull in terms of commission but warned the bottom line was Jet2 had to strike a balance between commission paid to agents and core operational costs like buying and operating new aircraft.

Heapy conceded though there were occasions where agents made less commission than they would like and stressed he understood the frustrations caused by online discounting and price matching.

“Our objective isn’t to screw you guys and pay you as little commission as possible,” said Heapy. “But we have to find that balance between making money and making you money.”

Jet2’s summer 2019 programme went on sale in April and will cost around £1.6 billion to operate said Heapy. “We have to fly that programme,” he said. “If you add up the cost of every one of our flights, it comes to about £1.6 billion. So we are starting off with a profit and loss of minus £1.6 billion. We’ve got to get back up and eventually make a profit.”

Heapy said head of trade Alan Cross and his team were looking at discounting and commission structures to see how they can make agents more money, adding any proposals would be discussed in the coming weeks.

“There are various levers we can turn in terms of commission, mark-up, etc,” said Heapy. “We are doing a lot of work and modelling at the moment. We know some of you guys take a lower anount of commission on bookings after you’ve been through price match.

“We want to pay you guys more money, and we will look at ways in which we can do that. Alan has some proposals in his budget for next week. We will talk them through and hopefully we will be able to help.”