Jet2holidays.com says it is ready for the new Flight-Plus Atol regulations to come into force on April 30 and expects agents to sell more of its packages as a result of the reform.
Alan Cross, the operator’s trade general manager, was speaking to Travel Weekly as sister airline Jet2.com launched routes from Glasgow to Barcelona, Malaga, Lanzarote, Ibiza, Crete and Rhodes.
The expansion of the flying programme from Glasgow comes a year after Jet2.com started flying from the airport and had helped to fill the void left by Globespan in 2010, said Cross.
Jet2holidays started selling through the trade three years ago and Cross said trade sales had exceeded expectations. Agents now account for 40% of bookings, more than double an original expectation of 15% to 20%.
Cross expects the operator’s popularity with the trade to increase when Flight-Plus Atol regulations come into force.
“We are looking to further grow the holidays side of the business, particularly with the new Atol reforms coming in,” he said.
“There are a lot of agents who want to sleep at night and to have someone else to deal with the hassle. Selling a package is the answer. We are ahead of the game with agency agreements and looking to build Atol Certificates into confirmations.”
Jet2.com has recruited Ben Cook from Thomas Cook as product manager to increase sales through online agents thanks to new API feeds being developed.
Cross said this was a growing part of the business as online agents realised there was money to be made from selling traditional packages as well as dynamically packaged components.