The downturn comes after a strong start to the year for the group’s airline and tour operator businesses.

Dart still expects group profit for its 2019/20 financial year (through to 31 March) to come in “significantly ahead of current market expectations”, but has warned the impact on its 2020/21 profits remained uncertain.

In a trading update, issued on Wednesday (11 March), the group hailed “consistently strong consumer demand” across both package and flight-only bookings during January and February, adding bookings for summer 2020 were tracking “well ahead” of its 16% capacity increase for summer 2020.

“Understandably, however, momentum has weakened over recent weeks with the increased reporting of Covid-19 cases in Europe,” said Dart. “Nevertheless, our current cumulative summer 2020 bookings remain above those at this time last year.”

The group said the success of Jet2holidays and its new Vibe brand, underpinned by the group’s “strong and prudent” balance sheet, gave it “long-term confidence for the future”.

“However, given the limited visibility on the impact of Covid-19, the board is currently unable to determine how this will affect group profit before foreign exchange revaluation and taxation for the financial year ending 31 March 2021.”

Dart added it was monitoring the situation carefully and taking proportionate actions, which include capacity reductions on some routes.