Holiday group TUI has reported a £63 million hit from the recent travel chaos that crippled airports and led to flight cancellations and lengthy delays. The firm said its customers were impacted by about 200 flight cancellations in May and June, in particular due to woes at Manchester Airport amid staff shortages.
TUI remained loss-making in the three months to the end of June blaming the costs of the airport disruption, reporting third quarter underlying pre-tax losses of £23 million in its third quarter. This still marked a big improvement on the £566 million underlying loss suffered a year earlier thanks to the recent rebound in travel demand.
The firm said that with the airport disruption impact stripped out, it would have reported underlying earnings of £41 million in its third quarter – its first profit since the pandemic struck. It said holidaymakers were making more last-minute bookings and spending extra on their trips. Average holiday prices are at a “very high” level for summer 2022, up 18 per cent with customers booking more package holidays and higher value services such as room upgrades and longer stays.
Chief executive-designate Sebastian Ebel said: “People want to travel and holidays continue to top the list of planned spending – this has not changed. Although the entire European airline sector continues to face challenges, we have successfully ramped up our business with a significant increase in demand and achieved a good third quarter.
“This shows once again our integrated business model is robust. TUI is a strong brand, trusted by holidaymakers and our partners in the destinations. We are consistently tackling the operational challenges of the restart. We want to offer our guests the usual high TUI standards of quality and service."
He added: “The topics of quality and customer experience are therefore at the top of my agenda. To this end, I will engage in intensive dialogues with the destinations, retail, but also with system partners such as airports and airlines.
“TUI’s travel summer will be strong, with capacity almost at pre-crisis levels."
