Jet2 expects ‘record-breaking’ May Day holiday weekend

Jet2 is projecting a record-breaking May Day bank holiday weekend with high numbers of passengers travelling abroad.

The UK’s largest tour operator and third largest airline will see a double-digit percentage increase in customers departing between Saturday and Monday compared to the same time last year.

The early-May bank holiday is often seen as the start of the summer with operations ramping up.

The company’s fleet of 139 aircraft will be operating from 14 UK airports to destinations across Europe, the Mediterranean, Canary Islands and North Africa. 

Mainland Spain, the Canaries, Portugal, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Morocco are all seen as busy destinations this weekend. 

Today (Friday) is expected the busiest day for UK departures during the weekend, with 3,114 flights taking off, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

The long weekend will see 11,867 flights scheduled to depart UK airports – equating to more than two million seats

The most popular international destinations for UK departures will be Dublin, followed by Amsterdam, Palma, Alicante and Malaga.

However, departures from UK airports are still down 4.5% compared to the early May Bank Holiday weekend in pre-pandemic 2019 when there were 12,430 departing flights

Heathrow will see the largest number of departures at 2,622 this weekend, followed by Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.

Jet2 became the first UK airline and tour operator to confirm it will not introduce surcharges on any booked flights or holidays to cover cost increases, for example jet fuel.

The company confirmed a week ago that it has removed the surcharge provision across all flights and holidays, even though it has never previously applied them. 

Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy said: “Looking at the number of people jetting away with us to the sunshine this May Day bank holiday weekend, it is clear just how much people are looking forward to enjoying their hard-earned holidays.

“We are operating our scheduled programme and delivering our award-winning customer experience as normal, and we cannot wait to welcome everybody onboard.”