Speaking to TTG at the Jet2 VIP agent conference on Thursday (25 November), head of trade sales Alan Cross said travel firms were left to respond in real-time to countries moving between traffic light categories, just as agents did.

"That was one of the most frustrating things for companies – and customers as well," said Cross. "There was just no notice. Everyone thought we knew about these things. But we’d be watching it unfold on the news just like everyone else.

"Agents would be contacting our teams asking, ’what are you doing about the flights tomorrow?’. We found out the same time they did."

Jet2.com and Jet2holidays chief executive Steve Heapy said the firm resolved to take a decisive line, shifting to its own four-week cycle rather than hinging everything on the traffic light updates. "We just looked at the forward view and took ourselves out of the equation," said Heapy.

Cross added: "In many instances, we took a four-week view. Agents loved that. It gave them notice. It was no longer, ’let’s see what happens on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday’."

Heapy said the decision set Jet2 aside from competitors. "If I was going on holiday, I wouldn’t want to be told ’check tomorrow, check tomorrow, check tomorrow. I just thought, let’s stop flying for four weeks, give people their money back and let them rebook."

This approach, said Cross, gave agents more scope to retain bookings, and for those desperate to get away to travel as soon as they could. "Certain customers were very resilient," said Cross. "We were booking up to, say, the 30th of a month, and we had people booking new holidays for the 1st and 2nd because they wanted to go away. The determination was really there."

Despite the government giving the go ahead for international leisure travel from 17 May this year, Jet2 announced in early April it had opted to restart in late-June and early-July to ensure people had a representative holiday experience when they did eventually travel.

"Other companies sent people," said Heapy. "We thought, ’well 90% of the bars are shut, and 90% of the restaurants’, would we really want to go on holiday there ourselves? So we didn’t send our customers. That was one of our mantras - don’t send customers where you wouldn’t be prepared to go yourself.

"Some of them started 17 May and said, ’we’re flying, we’re flying, we’re flying’. And then it was, ’we’re flying some, we’re flying some’ and then ’we’re flying none, we’ve cancelled it all’. They kept people hanging on, stringing them along. We were decisive, we looked to July."

Cross added: "We were decisive both with agents and customers. The decision was made – early. It was a line in the sand."

’Prolonged support’

During an earlier on-stage interview with Cross, Heapy also gave his assessment of the government’s support for travel – and the economy, more widely. "What they actually did [for the economy] was a lot," he said.

"[But they] could have done a lot of things a lot better. They could have acted more quickly. And they could have seen the travel industry as a different case.

"When the high street started opening up, there was no point in travel agencies opening as we couldn’t really travel. They [government] didn’t realise the travel industry was a different case. It should have received different and prolonged support.

"The communication from government was also very poor."