British holiday operator Thomas Cook Group plc has ended its commercial agreement with Jet2holidays, reports Travel Weekly UK. The withdrawal means that Thomas Cook will no longer sell Jet2holidays deals through its Thomson and First Choice agents. TUI also recently ended an agreement with the package operator.
Jet2holidays is the package travel operator arm of scheduled carrier Jet2 (United Kingdom) (LS, Leeds/Bradford), and was established in 2007. It has been a strong contender in the competitive British package holiday space, rapidly closing in on sector leaders Thomas Cook and TUI. The package holiday market in the UK has been rising steadily over the last five years, and a report from market research group Mintel predicts that sales will increase by 3% to 98.8 million trips by 2020 for a total spend of GBP45 billion (USD56 billion).
In 2016, Jet2holidays enjoyed a 36% increase in the number of holidays sold for a total revenue growth of 22%, equating to £1.16 billion (USD1.4 billion). It plans to open two new bases at Birmingham, GB and London Stansted in March 2017, and is aiming for 1.5 million customers for the 2016/2017 period.
In any case, the effect of the end of the agreement may be quite small. Thomas Cook CEO, Peter Fankhauser, played down the announcement, saying that Jet2holidays sales had always been 'minimal'.
