The chief executive of Jet2 has not ruled out the possibility of the airline expanding into longer-haul routes, saying “possibly one day we’ll do it”.
Paphos in Cyprus, where the company held its annual conference last week, is currently the destination farthest from the UK that the airline operates to, although it did operate a New York city break programme prior to the pandemic.
In response to a question during a travel agent Q&A session about whether Jet2 would ever add long-haul routes to its network, Steve Heapy said it would be “operationally quite complicated and expensive” due to limits relating to pilots’ contractual working hours, but added: “That’s not the reason we’ve not done it.”
Instead, he explained: “We’ve prioritised other destinations and we have been busy launching our three new bases.
“We’ve [Jet2holidays] gone big into Morocco; we’ve had a big expansion in some of our other bases and we’ve put more cities on sale.”
He said that Egypt – an example of a destination given by the agent that Jet2 could fly to, as it’s “only one hour further than Cyprus” – is “on a list with others we are looking at”.
“Possibly one day we’ll do it. I’m not saying we will, I’m not saying we won’t,” he said, adding that the airline’s current fleet of aircraft would be “capable” of flying farther.
He teased that the airline would be announcing “another two or three [new routes]” over the coming months.
Another agent in the audience asked whether Jet2 would ever launch a cruise-and-stay option with P&O Cruises, as it currently partners with the cruise line on flights to the Canary Islands.
“Possibly one day,” he answered. “Maybe in the future we would do that as it’s sort of a natural extension to what we currently do. At the end of the day, a cruise ship is a floating hotel.”
He added: “We’ve got no firm plans, but we’ve got a lot of things we’re working on. We’ve got a long list of projects and a short list of projects. We’re working on three or four things at the moment that should bear fruit in the next few months.
“That [the cruise-and-stay option] will be one of the things we look at after that. Watch this space and let’s see. Maybe one day.”