A British low-cost air carrier Jet2 announced delaying its service relaunch. The company decided to postpone the flight resumption until July 2021.
Following the latest UK government’s update on the traffic light system that divides countries into green, amber, and red lists, Jet2 decided to push back the relaunch of scheduled operations. Initially, the airline planned to restart its services on June 24, 2021, with a flight to Portugal. The country was originally added to the green list, meaning that travelers were allowed to visit the destination without strict rules.
However, on June 3, 2021, the government made an update and moved Portugal as well as Madeira and the Azores into the amber list. The government also urged travelers to avoid visiting amber classified destinations due to the prevalence of the virus variants. Meanwhile, the number of green countries remained short, giving Jet2 weak opportunities to restart the flights.
The airline was also expecting to resume operations to Turkey, but since the country is marked red, it means that Jet2 will be unable to fly the route at least until June 22, 2021. In addition to Turkey, the government added seven more countries to the red list, including Afghanistan, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Trinidad and Tobago, with the changes scheduled to come into effect from June 8, 2021.
Speaking to the local media on June 4, 2021, Steve Heapy, the Chief Executive Officer of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays, highlighted the company’s disappointment in the uncertainty and argued that the airline decided to delay the restart due to the lack of clarity on the governmental moves. Jet2 has now called the government for “openness and transparency” over the COVID-19 data so that the airline industry could better understand the governmental decisions.
“We know how disappointed our customers and independent travel agency partners will be following today’s announcement, and we share their concerns and frustrations. [..] We are now calling for complete openness and transparency when it comes to the data so that customers and the industry can really understand what is driving these decisions,” Heapy said.
So far, the airline plans to cancel all the bookings that have been affected by the recent governmental changes with a full refund for passengers.