Summer holiday prices are now 26pc higher than 2019, Tui reveals

Tui’s booking volumes are at 96pc of 2019 levels – the last full year before the Covid-19 pandemic upended travel.

“Easter bookings confirmed the strong customer demand across all our markets,” the company said in a half-year financial report.

Bookings for summer 2023 are up 13pc on 2022, with average sales prices up 8pc, “emphasising the strength of customer demand and underlining the popularity of our product offering,” it added.

"Given the latest positive booking trends, we are confident in our summer 2023 capacity assumption of being close to normalised 2019 summer levels.”

The report comes as passenger numbers at Irish airports are surpassing pre-Covid highs and Ryanair has launched its largest ever schedules from Ireland.

In April, 2.83m passengers passed through Dublin Airport, up 0.7pc on its previous busiest April in 2019, and up 18pc on the same month last year.

At Ireland West Airport in Knock, a record 77,000 passengers last month made it the busiest April in the airport’s 38-year history.

The travel boom continues despite high inflation, squeezed household finances and rising airfares – Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary has said he expects average fares to rise this year by “the high single digits” in percentage terms compared with 2022.

“The month of May is set to be busy too,” said daa CEO Kenny Jacobs, “as we see large numbers travelling for big events, including the culmination of the football season in the UK, a number of big rugby matches including the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup finals in Dublin, as well as the beginning of the summer concert season.”

“It will be a strong summer and a good financial year 2023 with a significantly higher operating result," Tui Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Ebel said in an earnings statement.