About 20% of easyJet holidays' weekly sales are for departures within the next 30 days — a proportion Chief Executive Garry Wilson called "unheard of" — as he urged the trade to work collectively to pull the booking curve back forward.

Speaking at the Barrhead Travel conference at Lake Maggiore on Saturday (3 October), Wilson attributed the shift to three shocks stacked on top of the post-Covid pattern: the war in Iran and the wider Middle East conflict, the rollout of the EU Entry-Exit System (EES) and the UK's record-breaking hot summer.

"We did see an immediate slowing down of demand with customers across the board," Wilson said of the war's onset. "And then it moving later, and later, and later. That late demand has stuck. It's still very late."

He distinguished between temporary frictions and the persistent structural problem. EES and the heatwaves were inconvenient and "a pain to deal with", but their effects were passing. The lates distortion, by contrast, "seems to be lagging".

The destinations bearing the brunt were Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey and Morocco. Egypt, Wilson noted, reacted from experience by "wiping the price right down". Cyprus has been "a little slow" to recover, while Turkey is turning things round.

A collective push on the booking curve

Asked whether easyJet and the wider industry could reverse the trend, Wilson was blunt. "It's not good for the industry to have it so late," he said. "I think we all collectively need to really think as the year finishes how we pull forward the sales and get turn of year back to being a really exciting time for customers."

That will come with a capacity correction. Wilson said a process of "right-sizing" was imminent and would be addressed in the new year. "A lot of those destinations that had really good availability in July and August shouldn't really be available in July or August next year," he said.

Egypt and Greece stood out on performance, with Spain "coming back well in lates" — although Wilson still sees over-capacity in the Spanish market. He tipped North Africa for next year. "That's where a lot of tour operator capacity will go," he said, adding that easyJet holidays cut Turkey back to 2025 levels early in the crisis and will "probably put that capacity back in".

Agents carried the late market

The distribution picture matters here. High-street agents account for 20% of easyJet holidays' overall sales, but their share of late bookings runs significantly higher. Wilson credited availability, pricing and product for the market-share jump in lates, alongside a role only the trade can play.

"We went out with the fuel promise and various other things at the beginning, but I think just sitting down in a shop with a travel agent reassuring you as a customer – [it's] really, really important," he said. "We saw customers relying on that much more through this summer."

Fuel costs and a six-to-eight-week window

Wilson said he thinks about fuel prices "every day". Hedging has cushioned the carrier so far, but "if that sticks, it becomes difficult". Expect sharper focus on route selection, early sales and load factors, with hard calls on whether capacity actually flies. "I think a lot of decisions will be taken in the next six to eight weeks as to whether that flies," he said.

The tour operator model gives easyJet holidays offsets the airline lacks. Fuel is roughly 90%-plus of an airline's cost base but about 30% for the operator, leaving room to negotiate hotel and transfer contracts to absorb the difference.

Criticism of government policy

Wilson also attacked Prime Minister Andy Burnham's newly announced crackdown on airline charges such as guaranteed child seating and extra bags. "You think, that's just going to put the price of flight tickets up," he said. "You're just going to limit the amount of people who fly."

He accused the government of ignoring the structural levers: "He said nothing about the taxation, about APD [Air Passenger Duty], about investment in SAF [Sustainable Aviation Fuel] which is going to be hugely prohibitive if the price goes up."

On APD specifically, Wilson said: "You can't say to a customer, 'we know how important your holiday is but we're going to tax the hell out of it'. It's either important or not to them. They do need to put their money where their mouth is."

With capacity decisions due within weeks and a collective push planned for the turn of year, Wilson's message to sellers of travel is that the late-booking equilibrium of the past two seasons is not one the industry intends to accept for 2027.