As a journey journalist, Claire Dodd has checked into five-star accommodations and set sail on butler-staffed cruises. But when she books her personal holidays, she goes for one thing decidedly extra low key: Jet2 Holidays, the British finances tour operator she declares “a fricking delight.”
“They’re so nice to deal with at the airport,” she says. “You get there, and instead of the slightly begrudging service you sometimes get from a budget airline, they actually look happy to see you. They’re super-organized — there’s never a queue because there’s some jolly customer service agent directing you where you need to be. Everyone seems happy.”
Dodd isn’t alone. Since its 2007 launch, Jet2 Holidays has grown into the UK’s largest tour operator, providing flight-and-hotel “package holidays” with transfers included. Known for its full of life pink branding, upbeat workers and easy operations, it’s quietly turn out to be a cult favourite amongst British vacationers.
Now, unexpectedly, its cult standing has gone world.
It all began with an advert that aired again in January 2024. A jaunty, 30-second affair pitching bundle holidays discounted by “£50 per person — that’s £200 off for a family of four.”
In the original video, a household (of 4, after all) race with breathless pleasure towards the Jet2 check-in desk, gleefully board a Jet2 aircraft, excessive 5 the cabin crew as they disembark and proceed to take pleasure in a vacation in the solar. Discounted, after all, by a whopping $66 per head, and accompanied by the hook from singer Jess Glynne’s 2015 music “Hold My Hand.”
The low cost deal has lengthy since expired, but it surely lives on in memes. On social media, the household has been erased, and the audio alone has gone viral. So far it has soundtracked greater than 1,000,000 TikTok movies, often to accompany footage of a trip going very wrong, together with being arrested on a Jet2 flight.
Anything unfavorable appears to work: dodging mosquitos in Italy or floodwater gushing by way of the carriages of the New York subway. This week, Jet2 Holidays even landed in Hollywood, as Jeff Goldblum contributed his own video on TikTok, narrating the identical script however branding it “Jeff2 Holidays.”
Free promoting or unfavorable publicity? Asked by NCS about its unlikely social media fame, Jet2 didn’t provide a response.
For the internet, it’s a fleeting crush. But for individuals who’ve been on a Jet2 Holiday, it’s a long-term relationship.
“You know where you are pricewise, your baggage is included, it usually includes a transfer and you can upgrade to a private transfer if you don’t want to sit on a coach for hours going round everyone else’s hotels,” says Dodd, from London, who lately traveled to Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands with Jet2 Holidays.
Tanya Kirk, an artwork therapist from Northern Ireland, is one other repeat buyer. “It was a great experience from start to finish,” she says of her final Jet2 Holiday, to Benidorm in southern Spain. “When we had a difficulty — mum left her journey pockets with cash and paperwork on the coach switch — they had been very useful and did all the things they may to hint the misplaced pockets and return it to us.
“It can be stressful enough booking flights, hotels and organizing transfers. Booking with Jet2 Holidays makes that all so straightforward so you can relax into your holiday with no worries about these things.”
If all you already know about Jet2 Holidays is that sooner or later you can’ve bought £200 off for a household of 4 (48 kilos of bags included), right here’s a 101 on the UK’s largest tour operator.
Despite its present buzz, Jet2’s origins are quite mundane. It started in 1971 as Carpenter’s Air Services, flying flowers from the island of Guernsey to the UK mainland on Douglas DC3s. In 1975, it rebranded as Express Air Freight, and 4 years later modified its identify once more to Express Air Services. In 1983, below new possession, it turned Channel Express.
In 2001, with two Boeing 737s on its roster, it branched out into constitution flights for the public, rebranding as Jet2 and launching scheduled flights from its Leeds Bradford airport base in the north of England two years later. Jet2 Holidays adopted in 2007, packaging up flight, lodge, and transfers between the two — and sowing the seeds for 2025’s song of the summer.
Today, Jet2’s fleet of 120 Boeing and Airbus airplanes scoop up folks seeking a wallet-friendly trip from 13 regional airports round the UK, and drop them off round Europe’s sunny scorching spots. In 2024, slightly below 19.4 million passengers flew with them, on practically 115,000 flights.
They take pleasure in themselves, too.
Both Jet2 and Jet2 Holidays get glowing reviews from Which?, the UK client affiliation, which compiles its rankings from buyer suggestions. Jet2 has topped the short-haul desk in its annual “airline satisfaction” survey yearly since the pandemic. “Jet2 is one of our best rated travel firms,” says Naomi Leach, deputy editor of Which? Travel. “A huge draw is that the brand has friendly, helpful staff who often go above and beyond to assist. If something goes wrong they are likely to have staff on hand to help.”
There are, after all, unfavorable critiques. Scroll by way of a web site like Tripadvisor and it’s clear not everyone enjoys their Jet2 Holiday expertise. But these one-, two-, three- and four-star critiques mixed don’t come near matching these with 5 stars. That’s a much better exhibiting than for different rival European finances carriers like Ryanair and EasyJet.
For these embarking on a Jet2 aircraft, it’s over to Jess Glynne once more. “Darling, hold my hand!” she sings, again and again on the PA system as passengers board. Weeks after the trip has ended and suntans have pale away, that earworm will nonetheless be enjoying of their heads.
Tina Edwards, a DJ who has carried out at festivals round the world, thinks it’s Glynne’s music that’s made the Jet2 business’s audio go viral quite than the “£50 per person” voiceover.
“It’s funny being asked whether this track is the sound of the summer because I feel that it’s essentially the ‘Darling hold my hand’ hook that’s the teeny tiny hit,” says Edwards, who hosts a music present, Next Big Thing, for Jet2’s rival, British Airways.
It is, she says, an instance of a traditional good fifth, a musical interval identified for its harmonious high quality. “It sounds so complete, so satisfying.”
Glynne celebrated a decade of the monitor in March, which gave her her first UK primary, staying at the prime of the charts for 3 weeks. Nominated for Song of the Year at the 2015 BBC Music Awards, it even charted on the US Billboard Hot 100. As effectively as being the soundtrack to all 115,000 Jet2 flights annually, it’s been sampled in a Coca-Cola advert and was a part of the “Bridget Jones’ Baby” soundtrack.
Glynne hasn’t publicly commented on the music going viral, however she did submit her own spoof of the advert in May, larking round in the gymnasium with her girlfriend. “Here’s to Jet2 blasting it in everyone’s ears,” she wrote in March to mark its 10-year anniversary. She has began closing her units with the monitor, as followers brandish “Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday” indicators, in accordance with music publication NME.
She additionally criticized the White House after it posted its own controversial version of the meme on X, setting the audio to footage showing to indicate deportation flights from the US. “My music is about love, unity and positivity — never about spreading hate,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “This post honestly makes me sick.”
Glynne’s music, alongside with a predictable and upbeat service, is all a part of the Jet2 attraction, say those that have skilled it.
“You know exactly what you’re going to get,” says Markus Kendall-Young, director of Auria Travel, who dispatches folks round Europe on Jet2 Holidays from his Leicestershire base.
“Clients completely find it irresistible as a result of they realize it’s stress-free, simple, they’ll get an excellent deal. They’ll get their flight, transfers, lodging they usually’re going to have workers round to assist them each step of the manner.
Flying in a Jet2 aircraft is a vital a part of the expertise, he says.
“You know you’re going to have the Jess Glynne tune enjoying again and again. It sticks in folks’s heads they usually completely find it irresistible. It makes you’re feeling such as you need to have somewhat little bit of a dance — you’re going on vacation, you desire a drink.
“You know exactly which prerecorded message is next. You know it’s ‘Ladies and gents, boys and girls,’ you know they’re going to do the really corny announcements about the special offers onboard. They push food and drink really hard, and you know they’re offering you all those special deals and hoping that by the time you get to the end of your flight you’ll be well and truly inebriated and ready for your holidays.”
It is, he says, “just perfect. It puts a spring in your step going up the stairs, knowing you’re boarding a Jet2 plane.”
Rick Turner, a copywriter and designer from Leeds, is an unlikely fan. A houseboat dweller, he runs a YouTube channel with his husband Adam about gradual sea and rail journey round Europe. He calls Jet2 his “guilty pleasure.”
“We live off grid so always feel a bit dirty flying, but Jet2 flights are fun, cheap, and a much nicer experience than other budget airlines,” he says.
For Kendall-Young, it’s a completely British success story: “I think the UK just loves a package holiday.”