Speaking at the operator’s VIP conference in Spain on Tuesday (26 November), chief executive Heapy said: “If we can get more, we will.”
Last year, Jet2 operated in excess of 100 aircraft, which will grow to 11 for summer 2020. “It may be more,” he said.
“We are talking to aircraft companies at the moment. If we can get more, we will get more and put more capacity in.”
Heapy though said the market was constrained due to the ongoing grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft.
He said Jet2’s success was the product of risks others in the market, such as OTAs, were unprepared to take.
“Our summer flight programme costs about £1.5 billion to operate,” said Heapy. “That is a massive risk.”
Earlier this month, Jet2 snapped up Thomas Cook’s slots at Manchester, Birmingham and Stansted, which Heapy said represented “significant investment” in three of its nine UK bases.
An additional five aircraft will be based at Manchester, and one each at Birmingham and Stansted Heapy told delegates.
Taking questions from the floor, Heapy said while Jet2 frequently assessed options at all UK airports, he didn’t envisage launching a new base in Scotland in the near future, preferring instead to put more capacity into Glasgow.
And while not explicitly ruling out a move into long-haul in the future, Heapy said Jet2 was not doing any work on long-haul at the moment beyond its existing New York city break programme.
“Maybe one day we will do it, I know there’s demand for it,” said Heapy, responding to a question on whether Jet2 would look at Cuba where there is a shortage of capacity following the collapse of Thomas Cook.
Heapy added Jet2 currently had no plans to launch its own ski operation, but again stressed it was a “never say never” situation.
