Monday 14 January 2019

UNITED KINGDOM: TUI Airways Connects To Malaysia And Thailand

TUI Airways added 10 new routes to its schedule in the past few weeks including new long-haul links to Langkawi (LGK) in Malaysia and Utapao (UTP) in Thailand, from each of Birmingham (BHX), London Gatwick (LGW) and Manchester (MAN).

These six long-haul connections are all operated once every two weeks. The other four routes, including services from Dublin (DUB) to Salzburg (SZG) and Toulouse (TLS), from Gatwick to Lyon (LYS) and from London Luton (LTN) to Chambery (CMF), are not available for booking on the airline’s website, suggesting they are part of ski-season charter programmes.

The longest sector amongst TUI Airways’ 10 new routes is the 10,223-kilometre connection from Manchester to Langkawi, while the shortest is the 715-kilometre link from Gatwick to Lyon.

There is no direct competition on the six new long-haul sectors, but three of the four European airport pairs are already served by other carriers.

TUI Airways, formerly Thomson Airways and often referred to as TUI UK, is the world's largest charter airline, offering scheduled and charter flights from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland to destinations in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America.

The airline carried 11.2 million passengers in 2017, making it the third-largest UK airline by total passengers, after EasyJet and British Airways.

The registered office is at the TUI Travel House in Crawley, West Sussex but its head office is located in Wigmore House in Luton, Bedfordshire.

TUI Airways Limited holds a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Type A Operating Licence permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.

The airline was formed following the merger of the travel division of TUI AG and First Choice Holidays plc in September 2007 to form TUI Travel.

The two companies' respective airlines, Thomsonfly and First Choice Airways, were merged under the former's Air Operator's Certificate in May 2008 and were rebranded as Thomson Airways on 1 November 2008.

TUI Travel merged with TUI AG to form TUI Group in December 2014.

TUI Airways officially changed its legal name from Thomson Airways to TUI Airways on 2 October 2017. This was in line with sister companies TUI fly Belgium, TUI fly Deutschland, TUI fly Netherlands and TUI fly Nordic.

All airlines in the group, excluding Corsair International, are now rebranded to TUI.

On 13 May 2015, it was announced by the TUI Group that all five of TUI's airline subsidiaries will be named TUI, whilst keeping their separate Air Operators Certificate, taking over three years to complete.

TUI Airways was the last airline to be completed in late 2017. The rebrand began in mid-2016, with the addition of the new 'TUI' titles to its fleet.

In December 2016, Thomson Holidays launched their final television advertisement using the Thomson brand, before integrating into the TUI brand.During the rebrand in 2017, the TOMSON call sign was dropped and replaced with TUI AIR.

In May 2017, the brand TUI Airways began to be used in several areas and was implemented on all flight tracker applications. Most of the aircraft had been branded with TUI titles and onboard items such as glasses and napkins carried the new brand.

Thomson Airways officially changed its legal name to TUI Airways on 2 October 2017.[ TUI's sister company, TUI UK (formerly Thomson Holidays), has ceased using the Thomson brand, adopting the TUI UK brand on 18 October 2017.

The airline's head office is in the Wigmore House near Luton, Bedfordshire. The facility is adjacent to Luton Airport.

Most scheduled flights operated by TUI Airways are on behalf of tour operators. The airline offers flights to destinations around the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean from 19 base airports in the United Kingdom.

Additionally, seasonal charter routes are served from Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm.

TUI Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft:

- Boeing 737-800: 26

- Boeing 737 MAX 8: 2

- Boeing 757-200: 13

- Boeing 767-300ER: 4

- Boeing 787-8: 8

- Boeing 787-9: 4

- Total: 57


Tourism Observer

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