Tui boss vows to restore travel giant to its 'former strength'
James ChappleTui boss Sebastian Ebel has vowed to restore the European travel giant to its "former strength" as bookings inch back towards 2019 levels.
Bookings for summer 2023 are up 13% year-on-year and now stand at 96% of summer 2019 levels, Tui revealed on Wednesday (10 May), with average pricing "significantly higher" – by as much as a quarter.
Tui said a "strong booking trend" and "significantly improved" second financial quarter (three months to 31 March 2023) had underlined its positive expectations, with bookings in the past six weeks exceeding summer 2019 levels.
"We expect a strong summer and a good 2023 financial year with significantly higher operating profit," said Tui chief executive Ebel in a second-quarter trading update.
During what it described as "the seasonally weaker second financial quarter, Tui took around €1 billion in additional revenue, which increased to €3.2 billion, allowing Tui to trim its underlying group losses before interest and tax (ebit) by €88 million to -€242 million.
The airline, operator and high street agent carried 2.4 million passengers during Q2.
Ebel said after paying off its German government state aid, Tui was "gearing everything towards profitable growth". "We want to return to our former strength," he said. "That is our ambition and our promise to customers, employees, partners and shareholders."
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