The owner of Jet.2holidays and Jet2.com today raised its half-year profit guidance by 60% after an “exceptional summer”.
The forecast rise for the six months to September 30 from last year’s figure of £89.4 million came as package holidaymakers soared.
Parent company Dart Group cautioned that increased losses are expected in the second half of the financial year “as a function of the expansion of our leisure travel operations”.
In a trading statement this morning, the company reported a 21% rise in Jet2holidays carryings to 936,000 in the period, representing 41% of overall flown customers.
Budget airline Jet2.com saw numbers decline slightly by 1.9% to 4.53 million “against a backdrop of considered seat capacity reductions”.
The company said: “Despite the increased proportion of package holiday customers, our important flight-only product was enjoyed by 2.65 million passengers in the period.
“As a result of the seat capacity management and buoyant customer demand, the business achieved a record average load factor of 94.1% alongside a significant increase in average ticket yield of 16.4%.”
Looking forward, Dart said: “In what has proven to be an exceptional summer season, the group’s operating profit for the six months ended 30 September 2015 is expected to be at least 60% ahead of the same period in the previous year.
“With winter 2015/16 leisure travel bookings for both package holiday and flight-only products continuing to perform in line with expectations and notwithstanding the important post-Christmas booking period that is still to come, it is now apparent that group performance for the full year ending 31 March 2016 will materially exceed current market expectations.”
Results for the six months to September 30 are to be announced on November 19.