Travel News March 2022
NITN EXCLUSIVE: INTERVIEW WITH
JET2.COM AND JET2HOLIDAYS CEO STEVE HEAPY
Hear Mr Heapy’s take on the Covid-19 pandemic and where the UK now stands with this; What sits in the wings for Jet2 for both 2022 and 2023 and what the NI market means to the leading NI operator!
What is your opinion on the current position for travel in regards to covid-19?
T is a lot more positive than we were. The market is now getting back towards the levels we saw for 2019; Summer ’20 was massive- ly disrupted, as was summer ’21 but I think people are genuinely feeling like this is it now, and we speak to our customers regularly, we have got an email database of nearly 4 million people and we speak to them quite of- ten, and people think this is the end of the virus; There may be new strains but they will be less virulent, Gov- ernments may not lock down too hastily… and I want to get on holiday again and lots of people do. It’s been two, and in some cases, 3 years since people have had a holi- day and now this feel they are at the end, they want to get away and get a bit of sun; everybody deserves that.” He continued, “ {confidence} is a lot stronger than it was, the nerv- ousness is disappearing and everyday that we don’t have any bad news, I think confidence will continue to increase and we are getting more and more confident about summer ’22. We have put on more flights to Mal- aga and to Tenerife from Belfast for April, so there are a few more flights going on there and a bit of additional capacity because sales have picked up rather well and, as always, we will try and respond as and when we can, and put on more capacity”
“I
As the biggest tour operator out of Belfast ,it is a very important base for you- What are the current popular destinations?
“The most popular ones consistently are, and I think
this is because they are consistently warm all year round, are the Canary Islands. The most popular is Tenerife; People book in significant numbers there , but still the other Canary destinations are good; Gran Canary is always good, Lanzarote, wea re also seeing the Balaric Islands picking up quite well and Turkey is doing well also. The bookings there are pretty strong, the hotels, they have good products and good offers on. People tried Turkey, and Greece, for the first time over the last couple of years when Spain was closed, and a lot of them have decided to go back. We have a good range of desti- nations and they are all doing pretty well. In relation to mask wearing, where do you think the current restrictions are , and where is the industry heading? “I was in the Canary Island just before Christmas, and Turkey after that, both on business trips, and to be honest , you don’t realise where you have to wear a mask, it is not that much hassle, and I think over the next two to three weeks, we could see restrictions lifted through- out Europe, so I would hope by the time we get to Sum-
Jet2.com and Jet2Holidays CEO Mr Steve Heapy
mer that mask wearing is a thing of the past.” He continued, “[Jet2] work from some international guidelines and the guidelines for airlines are that mask wearing is still required, however, we are watching very carefully the announcements of Boris Johnston at the end of Feb- ruary. It is very likely that we will drop the mandatory masks even if the guidance is not that. In other walks of life mask wearing is not required anymore.” “There is an argument that the guidance should be more relaxed on an aircraft than anywhere else because the air is circulated every three minutes through medical grade hepa filters”. This therefore means the air released from the overhead vents is fresh, filtered air. Travel agents are more important than ever, and we know you have a great relationship with them, can you let us know what your plan is moving forward?
“ For many years, as many as I have been working in travel, people have said travel agents are going to be re- duced in numbers and I’ll become a thing of the past- I think, at the moment, it is a desire for people to speak to experts, to get face to face help, to get independent ad- vice… and that’s what independent travel agents give us. People, over the past few years, have been stung by the collapse of BedBanks, the collapse of Thomas Cook, the pandemic have different transactions with different people and I think they want to have the security of booking through a travel agent with expert advice and a tour operator who actually looks after them and cares for them. So I think the future is very bright but one thing that does worry me, as I’ve said, in the past is town cen- tres. When you’re in Belfast ,it is a vibrant city centre, as the likes of Manchester and Sheffield etc. but once you get to the small towns like the one I come from in Oldham, it is suffering; there is a lot of businesses closed down… and it is tough and we have to find a way for the government to breathe life back into the town centres. We have been asking for the government to do that and I would hope that they will put some effort into doing that because the travel agents have been, and continue to be, the heart of the community. “
With the 4 devolved governments across the UK with your bases in each, you must of found it very difficult. We know they are trying to align, do you think this will become even clos- er very soon?
“I would hope so. We are at the end of the pandemic now and we should be returning to normal. Each of the devolved ministrations have the right to set their own rules and obviously we respect that and it is absolutely right we respect that but, from a slight selfish point of
view, it is difficult to run a business operating in the de- volved nations to get consistent messages across to cus- tomers. I would hope that once we get back to normal, everything will be aligned again.” He continued, “It has been quite difficult to give one type of message
to one type of people and one to another, and where you have got a centralised function and people working in the call centre, they have to very quickly learn what the rules and regulations are from each country, to each country. For example, the rules of Northern Ireland to Spain are different from the rules from England to Spain or Scotland to Spain; they have got many, many versions of the rules to get their head around and it is quite diffi- cult. Obviously, we are human and sometimes we make mistakes”
Should Passenger Locator Forms be removed? “ Yes. I do not think there is any need for them. I know
{the government} is doing a simplified version of them but, I thought, travel worked very, very well before the pandemic, without passenger locator forms; they were introduced as an emergency measure because of the pandemic and, in my opinion, there is no need for them now and we will carry on asking for their removal and I think customers and travel agents should as well. Gov- ernments of all nationalities and colours have a habit of introducing emergency legislation and keeping hold of bits of it- there is no need. It is hassle, it is an extra form to fill, it is worry and for what? We did not need it two years ago, in my opinion, we do not need it now; let’s just get back to normal.” Sustainability is a high priority for everyone, currently what is Jet2 doing in terms of this? “ We have reduced our emissions already in the air-
craft, on the ground, in offices; we have ordered another 75 brand new aircraft, which are the cleanest of their class. We are investing a lot of money to going green- er. But, of course, we still emit carbon dioxide and until new technology is invented, that is non-carbon dioxide producing , then we will always produce carbon diox- ide. What we have to do is, once we have reduced that as much as we can, is offset carbon. We have a scheme now that whereby we already offset carbon as part of government schemes, by paying for carbon credit, we will be offsetting voluntarily the remainder of all the car- don dioxide of that paid into government schemes and we will be investing in schemes throughout the world that will either prevent the creation of carbon dioxide or will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That is from the first of January 2022; when people book a flight or holiday with
Jet2.com or Jet2Holidays, any carbon produced will be offset in respect to the flight.
We are also working with hoteliers and putting in place a scheme whereby we will be looking at a certification for the hotel. If they meet a certain set of perimeters they will be given a sustainability badge and we will be giving people the opportunity to search for sustainable hotels etc. The data from the search engines suggest that peo- ple are more and more interested in booking sustainable holidays and are looking for sustainable hotels etc. so we will be offering that as part of the search process.” Is there anything new with
Jet2.com or Jet2Hol- idays that you would like to make our readers aware of? We have {2023 flight} on sale so it is not just about 2022, we have next winter on sale, and we are looking at hopefully putting some more flights in Summer 2023 as well; there is some aircraft on sale at the moment and hopefully we’ll put some more flights on sale. We are looking at new destinations for Summer 2023, we have new ones in summer ’22 which are doing well and we are looking at doing more and hopefully introducing them to Northern Ireland as well. We are working very hard with our hotel partners to try and get more product so we are looking at getting more new product all the time and giving people what they want. We’re offering more choice than ever in terms of hotels, we don’t have a narrow range of product to try and funnel people into our own branded hotels; there’s no conflict there. We do not have our own hotels. We concentrate on providing the best experience for the flights, the holiday and the transfer and when we work with our hotel partners, they make sure people get the best experience. We are all about providing the widest range of choice and making sure people have the best experience.”
Anything you can reveal to us for Belfast in the near future?
“ We are planning for Summer ’23 at the moment. We have rolled over the capacity for summer ’22 so there is three aircraft on sale but we are looking at potentially more capacity and hopefully we can see what we can do in Belfast. We may have new destinations, either new to Belfast that form other places or brand new destinations that we can do from Belfast. We are still working on that at the moment, we have both eyes on the future now. Hopefully, understandably, over the last two years we have very much been on the here and now and changing flight schedules at short notice etc. But I am hoping we are out of this now. So we have got an eye on the future again and, as always, Alan Cross, our head of trade, is very into speaking to travel agents etc. and I think he will be over in Northern Ireland soon and I hope that I will
get over soon too.”. Since this interview, Jet2 have removed mask wearing on board flights
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NI TRAVEL NEWS EXCLUSIVE 39
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