Travel firm TUI plans extra flight capacity after Monarch failure

LONDON: Europe’s largest tour operator TUI is putting on extra flights to make up for capacity lost after this month’s collapse of Monarch, TUI’s UK and Ireland boss said.

The company’s UK and Ireland Managing Director Nick Longman said it had already laid on extra flights and was looking to add more.

“There will be an opportunity to look at putting some new routes on to the market. We’ve already done that a little for this winter,” Longman said. He also said that TUI was also looking at more routes for next summer. Unlike British Airways owner IAG and budget airline easyJet, TUI is not interested in acquiring Monarch slots at British airports, Longman said, adding that extra capacity could be obtained from TUI’s existing slot base and by working with other airline partners.

A spokesman for Thomas Cook, a rival of TUI, said the company was also adding capacity, starting flights from Leeds Bradford airport and increasing capacity at Luton to add a total of 230,000 seats for next summer.

Shares of leading travel companies and airlines rose after Monarch went bust, with investors betting that intense competition in the sector could ease.

Last week, Willie Walsh said that capacity in Monarch’s slots at Gatwick would likely be replaced, but slots at smaller airports might stay vacant.

Monarch fell victim to an intense price war in the airline sector after security concerns disrupted travel to the Middle East and North Africa and resulted in increased competition on popular destinations in the western Mediterranean. TUI has said that it is looking at restoring holidays to Tunisia. All holidays there were halted after an Islamist attack on a resort in Sousse killed 30 Britons who had booked their holidays through TUI.

Thomas Cook has already restarted its Tunisian holidays after Britain changed its travel advice. “If there is sufficient consumer demand ... then we will introduce a programme to Tunisia. We’ll possibly look at it for summer, but more likely it will be next winter,” Longman said.

— Reuters A woman demonstrates a prototype of a new TUI holiday-selection service as the company announced the rebranding of its UK operation, in London.