The firm has cemented its place as the UK’s third largest Atol holder behind market leader Jet2holidays (seven million authorisations) and Tui (5.85 million authorisations).
Loveholidays is now licensed to carry just over five million passengers in the 12 months to the end of March 2025 and has now more than doubled the size of its Atol in the wake of the pandemic after growing from three million authorisations to four million last April.
Jet2, Tui and easyJet holidays (three million authorisations) are all September-renewing Atol holders and go into the summer with established capacity plans.
Summer 2024 is understood to have been travel’s biggest ever in terms of Atol capacity in the market, estimated to have run to nearly 32 million Atol-protected seats.
Loveholidays has now expanded its Atol from around 1.4 million authorisations in 2019 to five million this year, a 265% increase. It estimates the OTA sector as a whole has expanded its Atol capacity by around a quarter over the same period.
On the Beach is another to extend its Atol this spring, growing by around 10% from 2.15 million authorisations to 2.36 million.
Thomas Cook, now owned by Poland’s eSky Group, has also added capacity for summer 2025, upping its Atol by a quarter from around 172,000 authorisations to 215,000.
Travel Republic, meanwhile, has further shrunk its Atol – the brand was licensed to carry 320,000 Atol-protected passengers this time last year. However, it cut this to 140,000 in September last year and has further reduced it to 104,000.
Virgin Holidays has also trimmed its Atol, down from 301,000 last spring to 275,000 this year.
‘Shaping the future’
Loveholidays said its expansion followed record performance during its 2024 full-year (12 months to the end of October 2024) where it sold nearly £3 billion worth of holidays. It said its 2025 full-year had got off to an even stronger start after selling £814 million worth of holidays during its first quarter (three months to the end of January 2025).
Chief executive Donat Retif said the OTA’s proposition "was resonating with UK consumers more than ever", helping attraction both new and repeat custom, with one in two (51%) of Loveholidays’ bookings now coming from repeats.
Retif claimed Loveholidays and the online travel agency business model was now "shaping the future of the package holiday market". “While we have firmly established ourselves as the UK and Ireland’s largest online travel agent, our vision to become Europe’s biggest and most-loved holiday provider remains clear, with further product and market expansion on the horizon," he added.
Loveholidays said had strategically diversified its offering to drive a 57% year-on-year increase in short-haul city break passengers during its Q1 and a 43% increase in long-haul passengers.
The Canaries, mainland Spain and Greece’s islands remain its top three destinations with British holidaymakers, but there has been huge growth in demand for Romania (+821%), Albania (+527%), Thailand (+85%) and Tunisia (+68%) during the same year-on-year period.
