Chief executive Steve Heapy on Tuesday (17 March) outlined Jet2’s plans to bring people home amid the coronavirus crisis, and said the extra seats would be made available to non-Jet2 customers who have not been offered flights home by their airline.

Heapy also took the opportunity to thank the operator’s agent partners for their “understanding and patience” during an “extremely challenging” time for the travel and tourism sector, and said Jet2 would continue to do “the right thing” for agents.

“In line with guidance from the Foreign Office, as well from governments and local authorities, we have taken the decision to suspend flights to many destinations,” said Heapy. “When customers cannot visit bars, restaurants, shops and ski resorts, or take part in activities such as watersports, we know this is the right thing to do.

“We also know flying customers back to the UK is the right thing to do. With this responsibility in mind, we are continuing to operate our scheduled programme, with aircraft flying empty from the UK so that we can fill them and bring customers home.”

Heapy added that in addition to Jet2’s programme of scheduled flights, it was putting on extra aircraft to bring customers home, “some of whom may not have been offered flights home by their airline”.

“This is an enormously fast-moving and complex situation,” said Heapy. “However, customers and independent travel agents can rest assured that our teams are doing the right thing for them.

“We are contacting our customers who are currently in-destination and who are due to travel to advise them of their options. We urge customers not to call us please, as we are experiencing high call volumes. We will be in touch with our customers based on their planned departure date.

“We recognise that this is an extremely challenging time, and we would like thank all of our customers and independent travel agency partners for their understanding and patience.”