Alan Cross, the operator’s head of trade, told TTG some agents were adjusting their business models to book more mainstream package holidays to short- and mid-haul destinations rather than selling under their own Atol.
Cross, speaking at the launch of the 2022 Jet2holidays conference, said his team were also seeing more agents shift bookings to Jet2 at the expense of other operators.
“They are shifting their business from other suppliers to us because of how we have handled refunds,” said Cross. “They are giving business to the ones they trust. It’s not through luck that this is happening, it’s through hard work to get there.”
Cross said Jet2holidays was benefiting from having a low level of flight cancellations this summer, as well as “minimal” customer complaints compared with some competitors who have struggled to ramp up their operations. Consequently, 35% of Jet2holidays customers this year are new to the brand.
He also revealed that the share of bookings coming through agents for Jet2holidays had dropped from 28% to 25% in 2022, which he attributed to agencies still being understaffed and having to limit their opening hours.
“The problem is that agents are not resourced fully yet and many agents say they don’t have the resources to handle so many enquiries,” explained Cross. “That’s why it’s 25%, but I believe it will go up again. It’s not because there are fewer travel agents out there. When they are ready and the resource is back, it will go back up again.”
Jet2holidays was one of the operators to maintain its trade team throughout the pandemic. It currently has a team of 14, compared with 18 pre-Covid, which Cross said was “still one of the biggest teams out there”.
Cross added one of the trade team’s priorities was to "understand homeworkers better”, with homeworkers now accounting for 21% of Jet2holidays’ B2B sales.
They plan to recruit a new member of staff to focus on homeworkers, rather than retail agencies. The new employee will replace current homeworker-focused business development manager Freya Sutcliffe, who is leaving later this month to join Contiki.
‘Real competitors’
Cross added the team would be using more video conferencing to keep in touch with agents, while Jet2holidays is also investing in a CRM system to “manage accounts better in order for us to work more efficiently”.
He also called on agents to take “more risks” as there was “good business out there to be had”, as well as to better understand who their “real competitors” are. “When you say competitors, you’re thinking of the obvious ones – the travel agent 100 yards down the road,” said Cross.
“That’s not the big competitor, it’s people like On the Beach and Loveholidays – that’s who’s stealing their business. The thing is, every time they do a booking with Classic Package Holidays or Classic Collection Holidays, they’re funding On the Beach and they don’t even realise. It’s one company.”
