INSIDE TRACK
As I type, I’m flying home from Madeira on a 36-year-old Boeing 757 of Jet2.com. Jet2 has a history and current profile that most bus companies would aspire to.
It started as a small regional carrier called Channel Express carrying flowers to the channel islands, then some passengers, and then made the name change and huge jump to being one of Europe’s highest rated airlines with one of the largest package holiday businesses. It has done all this by owning most of its fleet – mainly Boeing 737 and 757 planes, meaning they weren’t paying huge finance costs on newer jets. The fuel penalty and maintenance costs on these have become much greater recently, but they ordered a new fleet of Airbus at the right time, of which at least 10 are now in service. They have focussed on customer care, training and providing a great all-round service without the worry of the overheads that a company flying a highly financed fleet might have. This has put them in a very enviable position, which to a lesser degree, we have followed with Connexionsbuses.
We have been through some tough times, which, had we been highly geared with finance, we probably wouldn’t have come out of, but we have invested in one B8…
