More than 100 million passengers have travelled on Jet2.com since the leisure airline inaugurated its first flight in February 2003. That initial journey was between the company’s first base, at Leeds Bradford Airport, and Amsterdam.
In the intervening years, Jet2 has expanded its network of holiday flights across Europe, and today its three most popular destinations are Alicante, Tenerife and Mallorca.
With holidaymakers already planning and booking their summer getaways, Alicante remains at the top of many clients’ travel lists. To cater for that increased demand, the airline has boosted the number of summer seats on flights to Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport to 420,000 (a two per cent increase compared with last year’s main holiday season).
It is offering direct flights from 10 UK bases – Leeds, Manchester, London-Stansted, Newcastle, Bristol, Birmingham, East Midlands, Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh – with a peak of 70 flights per week. Recently named as the largest tour operator in the UK, Jet2 also works directly with nearly 100 hotels in Alicante and on the Costa Blanca and, through its “City Breaks” division, actively promotes the city as a prime getaway destination and its surrounding areas as attractive sun and beach destinations.
Anniversary Celebrations
To mark its 20th anniversary of flights to Europe, Jet2.com hosted a birthday-themed celebration at Leeds Bradford Airport with customers and colleagues, including 40 colleagues also celebrating their 20th anniversary with the airline. Previously, staff in Spain enjoyed their own anniversary celebrations with a special event in Madrid.
Two aircraft served eight destinations from Leeds Bradford that first summer in 2003, including the first flight to Spain – to Málaga. Since then the company has grown significantly to become the UK’s third largest airline, flying to 68 top sun, city and ski destinations across the Mediterranean, Canary Islands and Europe from its 10 UK bases. The current program on sale represents more than 440 routes covering all seasons, including a fleet of 115 aircraft this summer flying to 56 sunshine destinations.
In Spain over the past two decades, Jet2’s services have grown from four routes covering four destinations to 114 routes encompassing 13 destinations. Last year, one in four British holidaymakers travelling to Spain flew on Jet2.com.
“Our anniversary provides the ideal opportunity to look back and reflect upon all that has been achieved since we first launched,” said Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays. “When we first started operating flights 20 years ago, VIP customer service, great flight times and value were key for customers, and this formula remains just as important to this day. By placing these values at the heart of everything we do for the past two decades, we have gone from strength to strength and expanded to become the UK’s third largest airline. That has only been possible thanks to everyone at Jet2.com and our loyal customers.
“As well as celebrating, we are also looking forward too. Thanks to our continued investment into building a company that is focused on delivering a VIP customer service, we are very confident about the future. Our unrivalled flying programme combined with our family-friendly formula of outstanding customer service, great flight times and value means we are looking forward to another successful 20 years and beyond for Jet2.com, and Jet2holidays.”
Karen Robinson, general manager of cabin services at Jet2.com and Jet2holidays, who was also celebrating her 20th anniversary, added, “When I joined Jet2.com in 2003 things were very different back then. We started with only 30 cabin crew and two aircraft, and the only thing we needed to consider was whether we were on the early or late Amsterdam flight.
“Over the last 20 years, it has been very rewarding to see the crew members who are still with us today progress in their careers. I thoroughly enjoy working with my colleagues at Jet2.com and have been lucky enough to make lifelong friends. In fact, I met my now fiancé at Jet2.com 10 years ago. My daughter has also joined the company as cabin crew, and I could not be more delighted to see her follow in my footsteps. Here is to many more years of creating happy memories together and taking millions of happy holidaymakers on their getaways.”
According to the company, since the first day of flying on 12 February 2003, Jet2 has:
- Carried more than 100 million customers on its flights, with Alicante, Tenerife and Majorca proving to be the most popular destinations.
- Served over 13 million cups of tea, more than three million KitKats and over 14 million bags of crisps, with cheese and onion being the most popular flavour.
- Launched flights from nine new bases, including Belfast International (2004), Manchester (2004), Newcastle International (2005), Edinburgh (2006), East Midlands (2010), Glasgow (2011), Birmingham (2017), London Stansted (2017) and Bristol (2021).
- Received multiple awards for customer service, including Which? “Travel Brand of the Year” (2018 and 2022).
- Increased its fleet size to 115 aircraft for summer 2023 from two in 2003.
- Increased the number of seats from 400,000 in summer 2023 to 15 million this year.
