Jet2.com: more dependent on holidays business of parent as Dart Group increases FY operating profit

Setting aside the impact of a provision for possible claims related to historic flight delays, the Dart Group increased its underlying operating profit by 3% in FY2015. This was driven by its leisure travel segment, which now aggregates its leisure airline Jet2.com and its package holidays business Jet2holidays.com and accounted for almost all of the group's profit.

However, operating margin slipped slightly, both for the group and the leisure travel segment, as costs grew a little faster than revenue. It is no longer possible to ascertain whether the causes of this lay with the airline or the package holidays business (or both), since they no longer report separate results.

We do know that the holidays business has grown in importance to the airline and supplied one third of its passengers in FY2015. Jet2.com is one of Europe's most seasonal airlines, with a seasonal peak weekly seat capacity (Jul-2015) nine times that of its lowest weekly seat capacity (Jan-2015, source: OAG). This strong summer leisure focus risks means that the airline and the group have a lot of their eggs in the same basket.