Thomas Cook stops selling Jet2holidays
Thomas Cook has confirmed that it has ended its commercial agreement with Jet2holidays.
It said the move was about increasing its focus on its own holiday offering.
As a result, Jet2 CEO Steve Heapy said the operator would increase support for independent agents.
"It’s not unexpected that Thomas Cook has ceased to sell Jet2holidays as a result of its in house distribution strategy. Our focus has and always will be independent travel agents." he said.
"At Jet2holidays we are committed to further increasing our support for independents with even more joint marketing activity and expanding our field sales team. There is now a fantastic opportunity for our independent retail partners to grow their business with us. They are now the only place on the high street where people can book our award-winning package holidays."
Thomas Cook said it wanted to focus on selling its own products.
"We’ve consistently said that by concentrating on our own-brand hotels and resorts, along with a portfolio of carefully selected partner hotels, we can ensure that our customers receive the best quality and service during the most important weeks of their year," said a spokeswoman.
"We believe we have the best holidays on the market and we know our customers buy more of our own holidays from us than anything else."
Its decision comes just weeks after rival TUI decided to stop selling Jet2holidays through its Thomson and First Choice shops.
Jet2holidays has significantly expanded in recent years and is now licensed to carry 2.27 million passengers, only 263,000 fewer than Thomas Cook. However, when Thomas Cook Group CEO Peter Fankhauser was asked today about the company’s decision to stop selling Jet2holidays, he said its sales through Thomas Cook were minimal. "It is not worth talking about," he added.
Jet2.com has recently added major operations at Birmingham and Stansted and already flies out of Belfast International, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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