The boss of sister brands Jet2 and Jet2holidays has reiterated his commitment to working with independent agents and not establishing an inhouse chain of agencies.
His comments came after rival Tui announced it plans to open 21 new travel branches across the country this year.
“We’ve got very good relationships with our independent travel agents,” Steve Heapy, Jet2 chief executive, told a Travel Weekly webcast.
“We have no plans to have our own travel agents, because if we did, they would be competing directly against independent travel agents as Tui travel agents do – they compete directly against independent travel agents across the road, and it creates a bit of an issue.
“We’ll do what we’re good at, which is running an airline and a tour operator, and [the independent agents] will do what they’re good at, which is running a travel agent.
“The two businesses can meet in the middle and have a very strong relationship, which we have at the moment.”
At Jet2holidays’ annual conference, held in Portugal last November, Heapy had declared that the company will never open its own travel agency as it looks to support its trade and hotel partners.
Heapy is also unfazed by the capacity growth from rival travel group Tui, which will have an addition 1.1 million seats for summer 2024.
Last month, Tui said it is planning its biggest-ever programme for next summer with extra capacity and at least 11 additional aircraft operating from UK regional airports.
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When asked about Tui’s growth, Heapy said: “I’m not worried. Tui put more capacity in. That’s fine. Well done.
“We don’t really worry too much about that; we concentrate on our own game, like successful football teams.”
He was speaking to Travel Weekly as Jet2 announced its 11th base will open in Liverpool, offering 20 destinations for summer 2024.
A total of up to 54 flights will operate weekly with a fleet of four based aircraft, representing 565,000 seats on sale.
Heapy commented: “Some airlines said it would be 2023, 2024 before they were back to 2019 capacity levels. We were ahead of 2019 in 2022.
“In 2023 we’ve increased again and in 2024 we’ll increase again so we’re well ahead of 2019 levels now.
“We’re attracting lots of brand new customers to the company for both flight-only and holidays.”
In February, Jet2holidays overtook Tui to become the UK’s largest tour operator after increasing its licence for 2023 by more than 500,000.
Jet2holidays is now licensed to carry 5.8 million passengers, over half a million more than Tui, which has a licence for 5.3 million.
“When I said when we became number one, we’re not obsessed with being number one. It’s never been our aim to be number one,” said Heapy.
“But we became number one because we are the best. We’ll see what happens in the future. Other people might put more capacity in and get back to number one again, but we’ll still be the best.”