People are still prizing their week in the sun despite the strain put on household budgets by soaring inflation, and we believe that airline and package holidays firm Jet2 (JET2:AIM) will emerge as one of the big winners as the travel and tourism resuscitation continues.

Jet2 has experienced several false dawns in its pandemic recovery, yet the brand has earned numerous plaudits for the way it put customers first during the Covid-19 pandemic, something not all travel companies can say. That’s important from an investment point of view, it should mean taking market share from rivals that have handled things less well, or from those that simply have not been able to survive.

Evidence of this was recently seen in UK Civil Aviation Authority data which put Jet2 as the UK’s number one holidays firm by passenger numbers, overtaking TUI (TUI).

Data from the company itself has also been knock-out. In a trading update on 26 January, Jet2 said it would beat market expectations for the March 2023 financial year, prompting analysts to rip up forecasts for both the 2023 and 2024.

The company steered investors to expect pre-tax profits of between £370 million and £385 million, way beyond the £317 million previously pencilled in by analysts, thanks to strong winter bookings and a highly promising ledger for summer 2023.

The company said that on-sale seat capacity for summer 2023 is 6.6% higher than the summer 2022 season at 15.2 million seats and forward bookings are ‘encouraging’. Load factors (how many seats are filled) are above pre-pandemic levels with pricing and margins ‘significantly’ higher.

Jet2 is also seeing a positive mix with 60% of its business coming from package holiday customers – up 16 percentage points on pre-Covid levels.

Challenges haven’t evaporated entirely, and the holidays firm still faces input cost pressures from fuel, a still relatively strong US dollar and higher wages for staff. In late January, Jet2 announced a pay deal for staff that saw average wages rise 9%, the profit bonus pool deepened and an extra day holiday.

True, the share price has already enjoyed a good run, rallying almost 38% so far this year, but this was coming from a low point. On Numis’ forecasts for 131.3p of earnings per share, the stock still trades on a price to earnings multiple of less than 10 even now, plus shareholders are expected to receive an extra 13p to 14p per share of dividends for the March 2024 full year. That payout could rapidly increase if things go better than conservative projections.

The balance sheet is also in good shape, with an anticipated £456 million of net debt come end of March implying comfortable headroom at a net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) ratio of 0.8 times.

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