Jet2 launches from Gatwick – and the company boss has plenty to say
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2026
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just when you thought London Gatwick couldn’t get any more competitive, Britain's biggest holiday company has launched at scale from the Sussex airport. Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy has been telling me why there is room for his company at a location already chock-full of easyJet, British Airways, Wizz Air, Tui, Ryanair.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. |
| 0:07.4 | It is Friday the 27th of March. |
| 0:10.5 | And I'm back at Gatwick Airport, which has a very different look from this week. |
| 0:16.0 | That's because if you come out of the railway station, into the south terminal, |
| 0:20.0 | the first thing you see is Jet 2. Check in. |
| 0:26.7 | Ladies and gentlemen, this is your final call for Jet 2.com flight LS3-177 to Tenereef. |
| 0:34.9 | Please make your way to Gate 28. |
| 0:37.9 | And you might be thinking Jet 2 don't fly to Gatwick, well, they do now. |
| 0:42.2 | And I'm here with Steve Heapy, Chief Executive of Jet 2. Congratulations. |
| 0:48.1 | Thank you, Simon. The first thing I saw when I walked in the terminal, |
| 0:50.6 | which you're always here. Thank you for coming to our launch events. |
| 0:54.9 | Very exciting day. You saw our checking area, very much branded and all our happy customers. |
| 0:59.5 | We've got two full flights going today, Tenereef, and it's great to be here to launch to see |
| 1:06.2 | our happy customers who want to try the Jet 2 difference. There's a lot of people that have never |
| 1:10.8 | flown with us before, and we know they'll be very excited to experience our award-winning customer |
| 1:16.6 | service. I was on the very first Jet 2 flights. It went 24 years ago from Leeds Bradford. |
| 1:23.6 | It's slightly expanded since then and of course Jet 2 holiday holidays now the biggest tour operator in the UK |
| 1:29.1 | so why haven't you been in Gatwick before and why is it happening now we've been trying to get in |
| 1:34.6 | gatwick for a number of years and it's been very difficult as you know Gatwick is the busiest single |
| 1:41.1 | runway airport in the world with not many slots left and an opportunity came |
| 1:45.2 | along last year there had been some infrastructure work that released some slots we met the airport |
| 1:50.4 | we spoke to them and we agreed that we would have an operation of six aircraft five based here and |
... |
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