trust, and one of the reasons why Heapy says he will not be following Tui and Thomas Cook’s strategy by owning and running his own hotels.


Strategy


Own-brand hotels are not on Heapy’s wish list. “We think we are good at running an airline and a tour operation. We don’t want to get into anything else. I would rather leave that to the experts,” he says, pointing out that Jet2.com was named Best UK Airline this year, as well as the seventh best airline in the world in TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Awards. Heapy says his strategy means Jet2holidays offers “a huge range of hotels” for customers to choose from, so it can “let the customers decide” which they prefer. Jet2holidays will also “stick


to its onions” with regards to distribution, Heapy adds. “We want to create and maintain cast-iron relationships with independent travel agents. I don’t want to be onflited and start competing against a main source of our bookings,” he says. “We made a pledge that independent agents on the high street will be our channel for distribution, so we want to protect and nurture that. We think we have a successful formula for giving high-quality, great-value holidays to our customers. We are not giving them a reason to look somewhere else – and that’s good news for independent agents.”


Financially sound


Heapy admits it’s a “simple” and “straightforward” strategy, but one that saw the group continue to grow in 2018, despite challenges


surrounding the World Cup and summer heatwave. It recently posted year-end results of £2.4 billion in turnover, up 38% on last year, with corresponding profits up 1 to 11 million. e are a finanially robust company – you have seen our accounts. Compare them with our competitors and you will see we are in a strong position,” he onfidently adds. ut we also offer award-winning customer service and are always improving it – you have to. We think we have the right strategy of providing great customer service for people. If you do that, they come back. “So, while other operators are


cutting costs and reducing the amount of customer service they provide [reducing the number of reps in resort and marketing], we are going to carry on.” Asked how Jet2holidays was


so finanially sound and ould continue investing and delivering profits when others were struggling and cutting back, Heapy says that “we perhaps don’t have the historical structural costs that other businesses have”, referring to large UK retail networks. He also points out that his business was based equally on two markets – 50% seat-only and 50% holidays. “Half of all the people now flying on a et2.om airraft are Jet2holidays’ customers and that split makes the business very strong,” he says.


Airline


Heapy reveals that Jet2.com now has 102 aircraft, with the last of a recent order of 34 due for delivery in January. This, he says, maes et2s fleet 50 bigger than Tui’s, which has 67 aircraft, and twice the size of


We want to create and maintain cast-iron relationships with independent agents. I don’t want to be conflicted and start competing against a main source of our bookings


Thomas Cook’s, which has 46. And Heapy reveals: “We are in


the process of buying some more, which will allow us to put extra routes on sale.” He says Jet2holidays’ frequency


of flying, allowing ustomers to book any duration, was another key to the company’s success, and a “big advantage” in the market. e now fly 125 times a wee


to Majorca, 90 times a week to Alicante and 80 times a week to Faro,” Heapy says. “This allows us to offer holidays of any duration, unlike some of our competitors that offer only seven, 10 or 14 nights.”


EasyJet Holidays


Heapy says the fact that traditional tour operators could not offer suh freueny of flying would leave them more vulnerable to the launch of easyJet Holidays. “We are going to have to up


our game, but it’s a big, big threat to the traditional tour operators because they have a legacy model that can’t provide the frequency of flying. asyet olidays will hae a similar model to ours, so it’s a bigger threat to the traditional operators than it is to us. “We believe in competition.


It lowers prices for consumers and increases quality,” he adds. Asked how he felt about head


of digital James Hardy leaving to join easyJet Holidays, Heapy says: “There is a vibrant and lively job market, so people can move between good roles. We have already started recruiting for his replacement.”


Product


eapy onfirms et2holidays had put more capacity into key destinations this year – with more flights on 12 of its 1 Spanish routes, to Greece and Cyprus, and a 100% increase in capacity to Turkey. “Where others have taken capacity out of Spain, we have remained loyal and added to it. Think Spain, think Jet2holidays,” he says. Heapy adds that Jet2.com had no


plans to expand into long-haul “at the moment”. “We don’t have the


right aircraft for it and we still feel there is lots more opportunity in short-haul,” he says, pointing out that Jet2holidays had added three new destinations for summer 2019 (Burgas in Bulgaria, Izmir in Turkey and Chania in Crete), demand for which, he says, had so far been “very strong”. “We are 100% focused on


providing great-value package holidays to the Med, Canaries and uropean leisure ities, he says, noting Jet2holidays was now the UK’s biggest city break operator. “We have launched new routes


for 2019 and will be evaluating opportunities to launch to other new destinations, so if there are cities you would like us to fly to, then please let us now, Heapy told delegates at the recent Jet2holidays VIP Agents’ Conference. He also revealed that Jet2holidays was in talks with more villa companies to grow its villa programme and says its luury brand ndulgent sapes had real potential to grow through the trade. e sell only fiestar. Some of our competitors have moved into four-star but we will sell only the best hotels in this programme. We have about 100 hotels and every month we look at the scores – anything that doesn’t rank highly is dropped. We think there is huge opportunity for this. There are a lot of people who want to book a more luxury product.”


Agents


Heapy says independent agents were key to Jet2holidays’ future growth and promised a new, faster trade website in 2019, offering an “inspirational search” facility to enable agents to tailor holidays more accurately to their customers’ needs. He adds: “We want you to make


more money. We love working with independent agents. The purpose of bringing 270 of you to our conference is to work out how we can grow our business with you and


how you can make more money.”  Conference report, page 12


6 December 2018travelweekly.co.uk11


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