Jet2 says wildfires and air traffic control cost firm £13 million

But the Leeds Bradford Airport-based firm said that, despite the impact of the extra costs and lost profit margin, it was on track to beat results forecasts for the year to the end of next March thanks to strong summer bookings.

More than a quarter of all flights to and from UK airports were cancelled on August 28, a bank holiday Monday and a peak period for air travel, as National Air Traffic Services (Nats) were unable to process flight plans automatically.

The air traffic control issues caused cancelled and delays flights at Leeds Bradford Airport (Image: Newsquest)

This affected around 250,000 people.

Cancellations continued for two more days as planes and crews were out of position, leaving thousands of passengers stranded overseas.

Airlines have been infuriated by the incident, which came at one of the worst times of the year, with little spare capacity across the sector due to it being the end of the summer break for many schools.

It came soon after the chaos caused by wildfires across much of Europe, provoked by a searing heatwave at the end of July.

The Greek island of Rhodes was particularly badly affected, with thousands of Britons having to be rescued.

Jet2 has revealed the cost of the air traffic control crisis to the company (Image: Newsquest)

As many as 10,000 Britons were estimated to be in Rhodes at the time of the fires.

Jet2 said its staff worked hard to help affected holidaymakers through the "significant disruption caused by the Rhodes and Nats incidents".

The group said the wildfire disruption saw its summer holiday capacity drop slightly to 15.26m air passenger seats, from 15.29m reported in early July, but was still 7.3 per cent higher than a year earlier.

Winter bookings are also "encouraging", with its holiday programme up 20.4 per cent year on year to 4.47m seats.

The group said: "Although there is still some way to go in the Leisure Travel winter booking cycle, based on current visibility and having absorbed approximately £13 million of cost and lost margin from the Rhodes wildfires and the recent Nats air traffic control failure, we are on track to exceed current market expectations for group profit before foreign exchange revaluations and taxation for the year ending March 31 2024."

Jet2 is now expecting annual group pre-tax profits on a constant currency basis of between £480 m to £520m, which would mark a significant increase on the £390.8m reported for 2022-23.