Continued from page 80
October 31 with a deal or the leave date be postponed. Te issue has come down to
whether UK and EU negotiators can agree customs arrangements for Northern Ireland that maintain an open border with the Irish Republic. Prime minister Boris
Johnson needs a deal agreed by a European Council summit at the end of this week. He would then present the deal to Parliament on Saturday. If he has the support of the
Northern Ireland Unionist party the DUP and Leave-supporting Tories he can probably get enough MPs’ backing. If there is no deal, Johnson is
bound by the Benn Act that MPs passed last month to ask the EU to postpone the leave date. Ahead of this week, Johnson
claimed he would both abide by the law and not seek an extension without explaining how. Any atempt to exploit a loophole in the Act would face a legal challenge, so the most plausible way out for Johnson would be to resign, although he may choose to seek an extension and stay on to pursue a deal. Optimism about a deal at the
weekend gave away to doubts as Travel Weekly went to press, with the UK proposals appearing vague and EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier describing them as “not properly worked out”. Abta chief executive Mark
Tanzer told last week’s Travel Convention: “Abta has been vocal about the need to avoid no deal. It’s costly in terms of preparation [and] damaging to consumer confidence.” Whether or not there is a
deal, a general election is on the
cards – probably next month. i ‘Grinding uncertainty’, page 14
EasyJet Holidays set
Operator’s upcoming relaunch has been boosted by opportunities thrown up by We already had a
EasyJet Holidays is finalising commission rates with agency groups ahead of the brand’s relaunch by the end of the year. Chief executive Garry Wilson
said: “We recognise we need agents’ help. We’re in the process of liaising with consortia and agency groups about what they want, and working out a commission structure.” Agents will access easyJet
Holidays through a trade portal and Wilson revealed this would be ready for the brand’s relaunch. While the portal will complement
the operator’s direct-sell site, Wilson insisted: “We fully intend to work with the trade.” He said easyJet Holidays’ model
would be “somewhere in between” those of Tui, which works with few third-party agents, and Jet2holidays, which courts independent agents. But he said: “I won’t be
employing a massive sales team. “Our work with agents needs to
be aligned to our business model and vision, which is to be a simple, straightforward, transparent, digital business.” Wilson added: “We’re also
holding a number of trade days around the country and have employed ex-Travel Network Group marketing chief Si Morris-Green to help map out the trade strategy.”
Thomas Cook void Te “massive opportunity” that Wilson sees for the tour operator has been enhanced by the collapse of Tomas Cook in late September. “Te demise of Tomas Cook
has given us opportunities short- term to put capacity into certain destinations,” he said. “But we already had a plan to
go to most destinations that Cook was flying to. We’ll just see if there is demand and put more in. I expect to see demand rising.” He noted: “We’re the second-
largest airline [in Europe], with over 100 million seats [a year] and 1,000 flights a day. Te opportunity is massive given our scale.” Nonetheless, Wilson is
cautious about the number of UK holidaymakers he expects to carry next year, declining to reveal the size of Atol licence easyJet Holidays has requested for the next 12 months.
plan to go to most Cook destinations. We’ll just see if there is demand and put more [seats] in
Data-driven Instead, he stressed easyJet Holidays would relaunch with a five-year plan to be “the most data-driven [holiday] experts in the world”, saying: “We don’t want to be a niche player, but
Garry Wilson: ‘The opportunity to share data between the airline and operator is huge’
78
17 OCTOBER 2019
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