Jet2 summer seat capacity rises 12.4pc

Airline business Jet2 said on Thursday that summer 2024 on-sale seat capacity was 12.4% higher than Summer 2023 at 17.17m, a "slight increase" on the level reported at its preliminary results.

Jet2 said July and August experienced "strong" late booking momentum, with September currently showing a similar trend. As a result, average load factor was now 1.2% behind Summer 2023 at the same point. Booked-to-date package holiday customers were up by 8%, representing 70.2% of total departing passengers, with flight-only passengers increasing by 17%.

The London-listed group also said Winter 2024/25 forward bookings were "encouraging", with average load factor 0.8% ahead of Winter 2023/24 at the same time 12 months earlier, against a 15.0% seat capacity increase to 5.14m seats.

"Year to date the business continues to trade in line with management's expectations. However, given the late booking profile, the remaining summer months of September and October not yet complete, plus the majority of Winter 2024/25 seat capacity still to sell, it remains premature to provide definitive guidance as to group profitability for the financial year ending 31 March 2025. Consequently, we will provide a further update at the interim results on 21 November 2024," said Jet2

As of 0950 BST, Jet2 shares were up 1.31% at 1,474.0p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com