TUI Airways, part of TUI Airline, has marked 10 years of flying with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircrafts, with the first passenger flight taking place on June 21, 2013 to Menorca from London Gatwick airport. TUI celebrated the occasion by surprising passengers on a 787 Dreamliner flight to Rhodes at London Gatwick airport with cupcakes and balloons and gave each passenger a luggage tag and premium Rituals pack.
The addition of this fuel-efficient, long-haul aircraft made TUI Airways the first airline in the UK to use the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The fleet now includes 19 aircraft across TUI Airlines, with 13 used specifically for UK customers flying to popular long-haul destinations like Florida, Mexico, the Caribbean and Thailand.
The TUI Airways fleet is a mix of 787-8 and 787-9s, with the first 787-8 Dreamliner delivery arriving on May 31, 2013 from Seattle to Manchester. Collectively, they have accumulated 401,377 flight hours, meaning it has returned over 7,500,000 million TUI passengers from package holidays. The aircraft on average travels at a speed of 600-650 miles per hour and has covered roughly 241 million miles, which is more than 9600 miles around the planet.
Dreamliners use up to 20% less fuel than other long-haul aircraft which reduces both carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide emissions with its cutting-edge manufacturing technologies that use carbon fibre.