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The UK Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Decarbonisation, Keir Mather MP, has visited Jet2.com’s dedicated maintenance hangar at Leeds Bradford Airport, to understand more about how the facility plays a key role in ensuring that the leading leisure airline continues to deliver operational excellence, whilst providing industry-leading training and career opportunities.  

The Minister was shown around the hangar by Jet2’s Chief Operations Officer, Phil Ward, and Head of Base Maintenance, Marcus Mountcastle.  

During the visit he met with some of the company’s engineers and apprentices, including Harry Richardson from the Minister’s constituency of Selby. Harry completed his four-year Jet2 engineering apprenticeship in 2023. These colleagues showed the Minister how the hangar plays a vital role in ensuring that Jet2.com’s fleet of 139 aircraft continues to deliver the company’s huge flight programme, which sees millions of customers enjoy award-winning flights and holidays every single year.  

The hangar allows Jet2.com’s engineering and maintenance teams to work on three aircraft at the same time, and the UK’s third largest airline has also invested in hangar space at Manchester Airport which enables teams to work on six aircraft at the same time there, reducing the need to send maintenance work overseas. 

The Minister heard more about how Jet2 employs thousands of colleagues across Leeds and Yorkshire, including nearly 200 from his Selby constituency, as well as how the company continues to create and develop careers across the region and beyond.  

This includes the creation of apprenticeship roles across aviation, operations, engineering, IT, commercial, marketing and finance, with over 400 apprentice starts to date from Levels 2-7. The airline is currently training over 30 apprentices on its four-year level three engineering apprenticeship programme and stressed the importance of introducing higher funding rates for engineers within the reformed growth and skills levy, to give more young people an opportunity to become engineers.  

The Minister was also able to learn more about the company’s Jet2FlightPath programme, which gives aspiring pilots the opportunity to fly for the award-winning airline without having to self-fund the £100,000-plus cost of flight training. The programme launched last year, with 60 candidates from all backgrounds are already working their way through a fully funded 18-month Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) training course on their way to becoming a pilot. This year’s programme opened for applications just last month. 

Jet2’s sustainability strategy was also discussed, including the tangible actions that has seen the company repeatedly praised for its results-driven approach.  

Phil Ward, Chief Operations Officer at Jet2 said: “A huge amount of investment and hard work goes into running our award-winning operations, so it was great to welcome the Aviation Minister and give him a first-hand insight into why nothing beats a Jet2holiday. As well as demonstrating how we continue to develop fantastic careers and invest in homegrown skills across the UK, we also discussed our plans for decarbonisation and some of the key levers that are needed to drive this, such as airspace modernisation and a thriving UK SAF industry.”  

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