TUI fly Deutschland

TUI fly Deutschland,[1] formerly TUIfly, is a German leisure airline owned by the travel and tourism company TUI Group. It is headquartered at Hannover Airport[2] with bases at several other German airports. TUI fly Deutschland is part of the TUI Airlines airline unit of TUI.

This article is about the German airline. For its sister companies, see TUI AG § Airlines.
TUI fly Deutschland
IATA ICAO Callsign
X3 TUI TUI JET
Founded1972 (as Hapag-Lloyd Flug)
2007 (as TUIfly)
Operating bases
Fleet size28
Destinations38
Parent companyTUI Group
HeadquartersLangenhagen, Lower Saxony, Germany
Key peopleOliver Lackmann, Managing Director
Websitetuifly.com

History
TUI fly Deutschland head office in Hannover

Formation

The airline was formed in 2007 by the merger of Hapag Lloyd Flug and Hapag Lloyd Express as a branch of TUI Travel. The airline codes of its predecessor are still in use, and the former callsign YELLOWCAB remained in use until it was changed to TUIJET on 24 September 2010.

In the second quarter of 2007, the load factor was at about 79%, after about 92% in the year before. Subsequently, the company closed its Leipzig/Halle and Bremen bases. On 29 January 2008, plans were announced to merge TUIfly with Eurowings and Germanwings (the Lufthansa low-cost brands) into a joint and independent holding company, but were withdrawn as talks turned out to be unsuccessful.[3]

TUI Travel confirmed on 27 March 2009 that it had sealed a strategic partnership with Air Berlin that would see TUI Travel take a 20% stake in Air Berlin, and Air Berlin 20% in TUI fly Germany. Due to regulatory matters, this was changed to 9.9%.[4] Air Berlin will also wet-lease 17 aircraft from TUI fly and take over all of TUI fly Germany's city connections. TUI will focus on serving the charter market with 21 aircraft of the remaining fleet.[5] From 25 October 2009, all German domestic flights previously operated by TUI fly Germany were taken over by Air Berlin, as well as all flights to Austria, Italy and Croatia.[6] Most of these flights are still operated by TUI fly Germany aircraft, but are marketed by Air Berlin.

Development since 2013

In December 2013, TUI fly Deutschland abandoned their distinctive yellow livery, and replaced it by the new blue design already introduced at TUI fly Netherlands, TUI fly Belgium and TUI Airways. The first plane in the new colours arrived in Hannover on 17 February 2014.[7] The livery has been updated once again, as of 2016, with new revised titles shortened from "TUIfly" to "TUI".[8][9]

In September 2014, TUI fly Deutschland decided to relocate their operations at Zweibrücken Airport to nearby Saarbrücken Airport as Zweibrücken Airport faced bankruptcy and an uncertain future.[10] In January 2016, TUI fly Deutschland also announced it would leave Hamburg Airport entirely due to the increasing competition from low-cost carriers. The summer seasonal routes have not resumed, and all remaining destinations were cancelled by March 2016.[11]

In September 2016 plans were announced to merge TUI fly Deutschland with the leisure operations of Air Berlin - which were partially operated by TUI fly Germany - as well as Air Berlin's entire Austrian subsidiary Niki.[12] On 5 October 2016, TUI fly Deutschland confirmed to be in talks with Air Berlin and Etihad Airways to create a new holding company for leisure operations. The new company was planned to serve important holiday destinations from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.[13] In June 2017 TUI Group and Etihad Aviation Group announced that they wouldn't continue their negotiations about the planned joint venture.[14]

In July 2018, the airline announced it would close its base at Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport by October 2018.[15]

TUI Group has 70 737 MAXs on order for the group.[16] The order consists of 18 MAX 10 aircraft,[17] with the remaining variants unspecified as of June 2017.[17][16] In January 2019, it has been stated that TUI fly Deutschland will receive 25 of these 737 MAX until 2023.[18]

After the demise of Germania in early 2019, TUI fly Deutschland announced it would base aircraft at Nuremberg Airport to take over several leisure destinations.[19]

In November 2019, it was announced that the airline planned to operate its own long-haul flights to destinations in the Caribbean and in Mexico, similar to its sister airlines. Initially, the airline would've taken on two Boeing 787s to operate these flights with plans to increase this number in the future. These flights were originally planned to begin in the Winter 2020/21 season, with scheduled and charter services to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Jamaica, and Barbados.[20] However, these plans were shelved for the foreseable future in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.[21]

In October 2020, TUI fly Deutschland retired their last of formerly over 20 Boeing 737-700s.[22] Several of them had been formerly operated as a long-term wetlease on behalf of defunct Air Berlin.

In December 2020, the airline announced a major downsizing in operations with a reduction from over 30 to 17 aircraft while terminating all services from Cologne/Bonn, Basel/Mulhouse, Paderborn/Lippstadt and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden.[23]

Operations

TUI fly Deutschland offers both charter and scheduled flights with about 60% of all seats sold directly, 30% as a part of a TUI holiday package and 10% by other agencies. TUI fly Deutschland itself offers drinks, snacks, and meals on flights to and from Cape Verde, Egypt, Greece, Israel, southern Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain including the Canary Islands, and Tunisia. Hot meals are served on the longest flights, including those to the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Egypt, and Madeira.[24]

Destinations
Main article: List of TUI fly Deutschland destinations

Fleet

Current Fleet
TUI fly Deutschland Boeing 737-800

As of January 2021, the TUI fly Deutschland fleet consists of the following aircraft:[25]

TUI fly Deutschland fleet
Aircraft In service Orders Passengers Notes
P Y Total
Boeing 737-800 28 — — 189 189
Boeing 737 MAX 8 — 25[18] — 189 189 Delivery originally planned from 2019 until 2023[18]
Deliveries of new aircraft have been suspended until further notice.
Total 28 25

Former Fleet

TUI fly Deutschland formerly operated the following aircraft:[25]

TUI fly Deutschland former fleet
Aircraft Total Introduced Retired Notes
Airbus A319-100 1 2020 2020 Leased from Sundair
Airbus A321-200 1 2019 2020 Leased from Galistair Malta
Boeing 737-300 3 2007 2010
Boeing 737-500 5 2007 2008
Boeing 737-700 21 2007 2020
Boeing 767-300ER 3 2015 2017

References
  1. "STCC TRANSAVIA Archived April 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine." TUI fly. Retrieved on 16 February 2011.
  2. "Contact Archived April 2, 2016, at the Wayback Machine." TUIfly. Retrieved on 12 May 2009. "Address: TUIfly Vermarktungs GmbH Karl-Wiechert-Allee 23 30625 Hannover Germany Address Airline TUIfly: TUIfly GmbH Flughafenstraße 10 30855 Langenhagen"
  3. "Announcement of TUI AG". Tui-group.com. 2008. Retrieved 2012-08-12.
  4. "Air Berlin information on taking over TUI fly Deutschland routes". AirBerlin.com. Archived from the original on 2012-03-25. Retrieved 2012-08-12.
  5. "Charter market". TUI Travel.
  6. "TUIfly information on flights taken over by Air Berlin". Tuifly.com. Retrieved 2012-08-12.
  7. "TUIfly erhält erste Boeing 737 im neuen Design". airliners.de. Retrieved 2016-11-05.
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-09-15. Retrieved 2016-08-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-08-20. Retrieved 2016-08-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. "Germany's TUIfly to close Zweibrücken base in November". ch-aviation.com. Retrieved 2016-11-05.
  11. ch-aviation.com - TUIfly to end Hamburg operations over LCC threat 13 January 2016
  12. handelsblatt.com - "TUI plans joint ops with Berlin's crisis airline" (German) 30 September 2016
  13. aero.de - "Air Berlin in talks with TUIfly over merger of tourism branch" Archived October 6, 2016, at the Wayback Machine (German) 5 October 2016
  14. "TUI Group and Etihad Aviation Group will not continue their negotiations - Aviation24.be". aviation24.be. 9 June 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  15. "TUI fly to terminate Karlsruhe presence in mid-4Q18". ch-aviation.com.
  16. "Boeing 737 Orders & Deliveries". boeing.com. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  17. "PARIS: Leisure group TUI converts 18 orders to 737 Max 10". flightglobal.com. 19 June 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  18. "25 Boeing 737 MAX planned for TUI fly". aerotelegraph.com. 14 January 2019.
  19. aerotelegraph.com - "Sundair and TUIfly help at Dresden and Nuremberg" 7 Februar 2019
  20. "TUI Fly plans long haul from Germany". travelbook.de. 22 November 2019.
  21. airliners.de (German) 28 May 2020
  22. airliners.de 26 October 2020
  23. aerotelegraph.com (German) 17 December 2020
  24. "In the air Archived April 2, 2016, at the Wayback Machine." TUIfly. Retrieved on 28 April 2009.
  25. "TUIfly Deutschland Fleet Details and History". planespotters.net. 17 November 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.

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