TIME TRAVEL TUI celebrates 60 years of travel from Newcastle Airport

This year marks a six-decade partnership between the UK’s largest tour operator and the north east’s biggest airport.

With holidays and flights now on offer to around 27 destinations from Newcastle International, TUI first started operating here as SkyTours in 1962, with packages to Benidorm, which back then was a fishing village on Spain’s Costa Blanca, and flights operated by Euravia.

In 1964 Euravia was rebranded as Britannia Airways, the new name based on the airline’s second generation of aircraft, the 112-seat Bristol Britannia.

The 1970s proved a busy decade with SkyTours’ packages from Newcastle becoming so popular that destinations in the Costa Brava, Majorca and Genoa in Italy were added. A Boeing 737 was based at Newcastle in 1972 to handle the firm’s 40% rise in demand, and routes to Malta, Tenerife and Malaga followed in 1978.

In the early 80s, the price for a week’s holiday from Newcastle to Majorca started at £83. By the 90s, new routes to Cyprus and Turkey were added.

In the Noughties Britannia Airways rebranded as Thomson, and maiden flights to Mexico, Dominican Republic and Egypt departed from Newcastle.

In 2013, Newcastle Airport became a Thomson Boeing 737-800 base, Thomson began flying the Dreamliner from the hub a year later, before its package holiday brands Thomson and First Choice were rebranded as TUI in 2017.

For 2023, TUI has added 455,000 seats from Newcastle to 11 destinations including Turkey, Cyprus, the Canaries and seven Greek islands, as well as longhaul hotspots Cancun and Florida. To support its Marella Cruises programme it has also added 35,000 seats to Palma, Dubrovnik and Corfu. tui.co.uk