Jet2 plc
PRELIMINARY UNAUDITED RESULTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024
Jet2 plc, the Leisure Travel group (the “Group” or the “Company”), announces its preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2024.
| Group financial highlights | 2024 | 2023 | Change | |
| Unaudited | ||||
| Revenue | £6,255.3m | £5,033.5m | 24% | |
| Operating profit | £428.2m | £394.0m | 9% | |
| Profit before FX revaluation and taxation | £520.1m | £390.8m | 33% | |
| Profit before taxation | £529.5m | £371.0m | 43% | |
| Profit after taxation | £399.2m | £290.8m | 37% | |
| Basic earnings per share | 185.9p | 135.4p | 37% | |
| Final dividend per share | 10.7p | 8.0p | 34% | |
- Further progress made against our growth strategy as the Group delivered record passenger numbers, revenues and profitability and further strengthened its balance sheet.
- The popularity of our holiday products contributed to Group profit before FX revaluation and taxation increasing by 33% to £520.1m (2023: £390.8m).
- Total flown passengers grew 9% to 17.72m (2023: 16.22m); higher margin per passenger package holiday customers rose 15% to 6.08m (2023: 5.29m), representing 68.3% of total flown passengers (2023: 64.9%).
- Year-end total cash increased 21% to £3,184.7m (2023: £2,624.7m). ‘Own Cash’ (excluding advance customer deposits), was £1,331.4m (2023: £1,127.1m), providing financial resilience and flexibility.
- In view of the positive financial performance and in keeping with its capital allocation principles, the Board has resolved to pay a final dividend of 10.7p per share (2023: 8.0p), an increase of 34%.
- Underlining our future confidence, the Group exercised its remaining Airbus order purchase rights and now has a delivery stream of 146 firm ordered A321neo aircraft delivering through to 2035.
- Our new Liverpool airport base is proving successful and operations from our 12th UK base at Bournemouth Airport will commence from February 2025.
- Summer 2024 on sale seat capacity is currently 12.3% higher than Summer 2023 at 17.16m seats. Booked to date Package Holiday customers are up 7%, representing 72% of overall flown passengers, with Flight-Only passengers increasing by 16%. Consequently average load factor is currently 73.4% (2023: 75.2%).
- Passengers are currently booking much closer to departure and therefore, pricing for our flight-only and package holiday products must remain attractive. Summer 2024 pricing to date for both products is showing a modest increase, helping to offset in part previously announced input cost increases.
- As ever, we remain mindful of the current macro-economic and geo-political environments and how these may influence future consumer spending patterns. However, we continue to believe that the end-to-end package holiday is a resilient and popular product which remains high on the priority list for our Customers, even during uncertain economic times.
- Year to date the business is trading in line with management’s expectations. Given the late booking profile and the peak summer months of July, August and September not yet complete, plus the majority of Winter 2024/2025 seat capacity still to sell, it remains premature, as is always the case at this time of year, to provide definitive guidance as to Group profitability for the financial year ending 31 March 2025.
- For the long term, our strategy remains consistent – To be the UK’s Leading and Best Leisure Travel business – with ‘People, Service, Profits’ serving as our guiding principles. With our differentiated and attractive end-to-end product, breadth of hotel choice and flexibility of duration, plus our consistently high-quality Customer First approach, we are confident that customers will continue to travel with us from our Rainy Island to the sun spots of the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands and to European Leisure Cities.
Chairmans Statement
Strategic performance
Our strategy remains consistent: To be the UK’s Leading and Best Leisure Travel business. It was a challenging year for UK consumers with rising inflation and elevated interest rates putting pressure on disposable income levels. However, against this backdrop we made further progress on our growth strategy, delivering record passenger numbers, revenues and profitability and strengthening our balance sheet to underpin future growth and provide financial resilience and flexibility.
Having successfully launched operations from Liverpool John Lennon Airport in March 2024, we were delighted to announce another new base at Bournemouth Airport where flying operations will commence from February 2025. This means that more holidaymakers across the South of England will benefit from our multi-award winning leisure flights and ATOL protected package holidays.
Our well capitalised balance sheet enabled the Group to continue to invest for long-term growth, including the integration of a further six new Airbus A321neo into our aircraft fleet, plus the launch of our Retail Operations Centre (“ROC”) in October 2023, the first of its kind in the UK aviation industry – both will bring notable improvements to our Customer First proposition.
In August 2023, we relaunched MyJet2, offering members tailored browsing, exclusive discounts and rewards, a streamlined booking process, easy access to key information, and excellent in-resort support via the app. MyJet2 enables us to combine customer data points across sessions and devices, thus providing members with their own personalised experience.
In the past year we welcomed over 5,000 new Colleagues to our business and expanded our apprenticeship programme to include over 150 individuals who we hope, in time, will become the bedrock of our future business.
Finally, we recently updated our Sustainability Strategy, with a series of bold, clear and pragmatic actions on route to net zero by 2050, outlining an emissions reduction pathway which will bring our 2035 carbon intensity in line with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) guidance. Importantly, the strategy focuses on existing technologies and tangible actions that can be taken currently, with a commitment to understanding and investing in emerging technologies as appropriate.
Looking Ahead
I am extremely pleased with how our Leisure Travel business has performed in the two years since the pandemic. Not only have we capitalised on the growth opportunities presented, with the business having nearly doubled its pre-Covid revenue, we have also remained true to our values of carefully investing to secure our long-term growth aspirations, whilst ensuring we maintain financial stability and flexibility.
With this in mind, and demonstrating our confidence in our future growth plans, we recently exercised the remaining 36 purchase rights of our Airbus aircraft order originally announced in late 2021, meaning we now have a firm delivery stream of 146 A321neo aircraft through to 2035. This valuable long-term order provides favourable operating cost efficiencies and enables us to confidently plan for the long-term as we continue to expand our footprint and the range of new and exciting destinations, ensuring we can continue to delight our Customers for years to come. In addition, our People, Service, Profits philosophy is timeless and actively guides our engagement with our most valuable asset, our Colleagues. Combined, these qualities provide a strong foundation to continue on our exciting journey in delivering on our long-term strategy, To be the UK’s Leading and Best Leisure Travel business.
Robin Terrell
Non-Executive Chairman