Following what the company called a “period of unparalleled operational and financial challenges,” Jet2.com has reported a loss of £374 million for financial 2021.

The figure compares to a profit of £264 million for 2020.

The leisure operator flew a total of 1.32 million single sector passengers this year, down 91 per cent from the 14.6 million welcomed last year.

Jet2holidays package holiday customers represented 58 per cent of passengers.

Revenue at Jet slipped 89 per cent, down to £395 in 2021 from £3.6 billion in 2020.

Looking ahead, Jet2 chairman, Philip Meeson, remained optimistic.

He said: “Bookings for summer 2022, for which package holiday bookings are displaying a materially higher mix of the total, are encouraging and with the vaccination progress being made, we are optimistic that summer 2022 will be a considerable improvement on both summer 2020 and summer 2021.”

He added: “We believe opportunities for financially strong, resilient and trusted operators will only increase as restrictions are lifted.

“Given the significant actions we have taken to carefully protect our cash balance and to improve our available liquidity and with our own cash balance as at July 4th of £1.4 billion, we are well placed to respond swiftly as the remaining UK government travel restrictions are finally relaxed and customer confidence recovers.”