The airline and operator’s profit for the year to 31 March 2024, before FX revaluation and taxation, ran to £520.1 million, up 33% from the £390.8 million it posted last year.
Operating profit ran to £428.2 million, up 9% from £394 million last year, while revenue increased by around a quarter (24%) from just over £5 billion to £6.25 billion.
Jet2 said the results represented record revenues and profitability, with record passenger numbers of 17.72 million – up from 16.22 million last year – completing a hat-trick.
Of these 17.72 million passengers, some 6.08 million (34%) were "higher margin per passenger" package holiday customers, up by 15% year-on-year from 5.29 million. Average load factor currently stands at 73.4%, down a touch on last year (75.2%).
Jet2’s on-sale seat capacity for summer 2024 is currently running 12.3% ahead of summer 2023 at 17.16 million, with booked package holiday customers representing 72% of all flow passengers – up 7% year-on-year.
However, the airline and operator also signalled caution, warning passengers are continuing to book "much closer to departure", meaning its package and flight-only pricing "must remain attractive".
"Summer 2024 pricing to date for both products is showing a modest increase, helping to offset in part previously announced input cost increases," said Jet2.com and Jet2holidays chief executive Steve Heapy.
Citing the lateness of the market, and with the peak summer months still lying ahead and with the majority of winter 2024/25 capacity to sell, Heapy said it would be premature to offer any guidance on profitability for its 2024/25 financial year besides stressing year-to-date performance had been in line with expectations.
Nevertheless, Jet2 said its 2023/24 financials had given it the "future confidence" to exercise a number of outstanding purchase rights on new Airbus aircraft to grow its firm order book to 146.
Heapy said these aircraft, paired with new CFM Leap engines, would make a significant contribution to Jet2’s ability to "grow more sustainably" over the next 10 years, cutting both per-seat fuel burn and carbon emissions by 20%.
He attributed the group’s strong performance to another factor, the addition of more than 2,500 team members, bringing total headcount to more than 15,000 during peak summer flying activity.
Jet2 staff were awarded a 9% pay increase during the year to 31 March, and the company has committed to a further 5.5% pay hike during its 2024/25 financial year ending 31 March 2025. It said this represented a pay uplift of nearly a quarter (24%) since the end of the pandemic.
Heapy said Jet2, though, remained alert to "unpredictable challenges" posed by the external operating environment, praising the group’s "proactive approach" in mitigating the effects of last summer’s wildfires in Rhodes, floods in Skiathos, the August bank holiday air traffic control meltdown and ATC strikes across Europe.
"As ever, we remain mindful of the current macroeconomic and geopolitical environments and how these may influence future consumer spending patterns," Heapy continued. "However, we continue to believe that the end-to-end package holiday is a resilient and popular product which remains high on the priority list for our customers, even during uncertain economic times."
Jet2 has put more than 550,000 seats on sale from its newest UK base Liverpool, its 11th, while operations will get under way at its 12th – Bournemouth – in February 2025.
New additions for this summer and beyond highlighted by Heapy include the Greek island of Symi and coastal Athens, Porto, Morocco (Marrakech and Agadir), new Christmas market destination Gdansk, Pula on Croatia’s Istrian coast and Spain’s Costa de la Luz.
