Jet2 has reported a sharp rise in the number of seats it had available this summer, with 17.2 million seats on sale over July and August.

The figure is 12.4% higher than last year, and comes amid a trend towards late bookings as customers hunt for last-minute deals.

Airlines have increased ticket prices in the wake of the pandemic, when flights were grounded and few people went on foreign holidays.

Worldwide inflation, high jet fuel costs and a drive for the aviation industry to decarbonise has also pushed up the price of air fares.

Jet2 said average load factor – the percentage of seats sold on flights, which helps measure an airline’s profitability – was behind summer 2023 by 1.2 percentage points.

While load factor fell slightly, the large increase in seats available means the overall seats sold still rose year-on-year.

The company said package holiday bookings were up 8%, representing 70.2% of its total passengers.

It said pricing on package holidays is “showing a modest increase for both our holiday products”.

“Year to date the business continues to trade in line with management’s expectations,” it added.

But the company was unable to give definitive forward-looking guidance on its profitability for the current financial year, because of how late passengers are making bookings.

“Consequently, we will provide a further update at the interim results on 21 November 2024,” it said.

It comes after Ryanair and Wizz Air announced they had set new records for passenger numbers last month.

Dublin-based Ryanair said it carried 20.5 million passengers in August.

That was 8% more than the 18.9 million during the same month last year.

Hungarian carrier Wizz Air said it carried 6.2 million passengers last month, a 1.0% increase from August 2023.