TUIfly

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TUIfly GmbH
TUIfly logo
Boeing 737-800 of TUIfly
IATA code : X3
ICAO code : TUI
Call sign : TUI JET
Founding: 1972
(as Hapag-Lloyd flight)
Seat: Langenhagen , Germany
GermanyGermany 
Operational bases:

see bases

Home airport : Hanover-Langenhagen Airport
Company form: GmbH
IATA prefix code : 617
Management: Oliver Lackmann
Number of employees: approx. 2,400
Fleet size: 34 (+29 orders)
Aims: international
Website: www.tuifly.com

TUIfly (spelling TUI fly ) is a German airline based in Langenhagen and based at Hanover-Langenhagen Airport . It is a subsidiary of the TUI tourism group and a member of the TUI Airlines group .

history

Hapag-Lloyd flight

Boeing 727-100 of the Hapag-Lloyd flight in 1978
Airbus A310-300 of Hapag-Lloyd Flug in 2002

Hapag-Lloyd Flug was founded in 1972 as a subsidiary of the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company . On March 30, 1973, flight operations started with a Boeing 727 on the route from Hamburg to Ibiza .

In January 1979, Bavaria Germanair was integrated into the company. The takeover gave the company its first two wide-body Airbus A300 aircraft .

Hapag-Lloyd Flug mainly operated charter flights to tourist destinations around the Mediterranean . After the delivery of the Airbus A310-300 , the company also flew to long-haul destinations from the late 1980s, including New York City , Toronto , Malé , Mombasa and the Dominican Republic . Almost all long-haul connections were discontinued after a relatively short time, only the flights to the Dominican Republic were retained for longer.

The low-cost airline Hapag-Lloyd Express ( HLX for short ), founded in 2002, was not a subsidiary of Hapag-Lloyd Flug, but an independent company of the TUI Group. Since the company was founded, Hapag-Lloyd Flug, together with Germania , has been responsible for running HLX wet lease flights , as HLX did not operate its own fleet.

The last long-haul routes were discontinued in 2001, and the A310-300s used for this purpose were used on the remaining shorter routes with high passenger volumes. The most distant destination has since been in Cape Verde with a flight time of six hours. In 2004, Hapag-Lloyd Flug introduced the frequent flyer program bluemiles . The name bluemiles, an allusion to the company's aircraft, which were predominantly painted blue at the time, was initially retained for TUIfly, although TUIfly has the color yellow as a distinguishing mark.

Hapagfly

Hapagfly's Boeing 737-800 in 2007

As part of the standardization of the brand identity, from 2005 onwards TUI established the TUIfly umbrella brand, announced as an alliance, for all of the Group's national holiday airlines. In the course of this, the Hapag-Lloyd Flug brand was replaced by Hapagfly and the TUI logo, both in terms of marketing and aircraft painting . Similarly, almost all other sister companies received the suffix -fly, at that time Corsair became Corsairfly .

In the same year, all but one Airbus A310-300 were sold to other airlines. An Airbus A300 chartered by Lufthansa was initially retained, but was chartered to Swiss International Air Lines for scheduled services to Africa until mid-November this year and then returned to Lufthansa. The Airbus planes were replaced by the purchase of new Boeing 737s . Hapagfly last had a seat occupancy rate of 88.3 percent in summer 2006.

TUIfly

TUIfly's headquarters at Hannover-Langenhagen Airport

After many takeovers and ongoing consolidation in the aviation industry, TUI considered in 2006 to merge the two airlines Hapag-Lloyd Flug and Hapag-Lloyd Express and to operate under a common brand. In December 2006 it was announced that the previous umbrella brand would be used in Germany for all airlines in the TUI Group: TUIfly . From January 2007 TUIfly replaced the two previous TUI brands Hapagfly and Hapag-Lloyd Express. The companies behind them, Hapag-Lloyd Fluggesellschaft mbH and Hapag-Lloyd Express GmbH (both belonged entirely to TUI AG) initially continued to exist as legally independent companies. Hapag-Lloyd Flug was responsible for flight operations, the sister company Hapag-Lloyd Express for sales of the "new" TUIfly.

The brand name "Hapag-Lloyd" has since disappeared almost completely from TUI's flight operations. Only the Hapag-Lloyd Executive division of Hapag-Lloyd Express, which specializes in business aviation , still uses this name in its external presentation. In addition, two aircraft in the fleet have a special Hapag Lloyd Kreuzfahrten livery. These are often mistaken for retro jets , as their color scheme is very reminiscent of that of the former Hapag-Lloyd Flug. The name also continues to exist with the transport and logistics company Hapag-Lloyd .

After its introduction, the new brand name TUIfly met with criticism from some major customers, including the travel company Alltours and the Rewe Group . These companies usually let their passengers fly with other airlines in the absence of their own aircraft fleet. However, they find it unsuitable for their own guests to board aircraft in which they are exposed to the advertising of the competition (since TUI stands for the competing tour operator alongside the airline). Alltours and the Rewe Group therefore announced a review of the contracts with TUI.

Negotiations between Lufthansa and TUI have been ongoing since the end of 2007 with the aim of a possible merger of the Lufthansa subsidiary Germanwings with TUIfly. After the failure of a takeover of Condor by Air Berlin in July 2008, Condor should also be included in this alliance. However, negotiations on this failed in October 2008 on the part of both parties. To increase revenue, TUI reduced the TUIfly fleet from 45 to a good 35 aircraft.

In mid-March 2009 negotiations were held with Air Berlin about mutual investments. TUI took over 9.9% of the Air Berlin shares, which were gradually sold again between August 2014 and July 2015. The Federal Cartel Office approved the cooperation. As of the 2009/2010 winter flight schedule, Air Berlin took over the city connections with 117 routes (55 of them in Italy ) from TUIfly, which has since concentrated on holiday destinations. TUIfly operates 14 aircraft on wet lease for Air Berlin. The wet lease contract runs until 2019. Under the TUIfly brand, only flights to holiday destinations are offered under the agreement.

In mid-December 2009 the Boeing 737-800 with the aircraft registration D-AHFP got the new, slightly modified livery of TUIfly, in which the previous lettering “TUIfly.com” on the fuselage was shortened to “TUIfly”.

In 2010, Hapag-Lloyd Fluggesellschaft mbH was officially renamed TUIfly GmbH. TUIfly is no longer just the brand, but also the name of the airline.

On December 10, 2010, TUIfly was the first German airline to take over a Boeing 737-800 with the new "Sky Interior" facility ex works in Seattle with D-ATUA . On May 25, 2011 TUIfly took over the second 737-800 with the new interior. Ten more followed by April 2015, so that TUIfly now has twelve 737-800s with Sky Interior.

In January 2014 it was announced that TUIfly will replace the striking yellow livery on its aircraft. As part of the changeover to a group-wide , new corporate design , all aircraft will gradually be given the new blue and white color scheme from February 2014, which has already been introduced at the sister company Jetairfly , for example . The first aircraft in the new blue livery arrived in Hanover on February 17, 2014 after a non-stop flight by Boeing from Seattle .

As it became known in May 2015, in the future all airlines of the group (apart from Corsair International , which is to be sold) will appear under the new uniform name "TUI". The change was made on the one hand for marketing reasons , on the other hand, personnel and aircraft can be deployed so easily within the entire group.

In September 2016, TUI confirmed talks with Air Berlin. The plan was to merge the aircraft from TUIfly, together with the aircraft from Niki Luftfahrt and 14 aircraft leased from TUIfly and Air Berlin in a new company. The talks with TUI were broken off in June 2017 without any result. TUIfly would have held 25% of the shares in the new company. Together, a new airline with 61 aircraft would have been created.

TUIfly on long haul

At the beginning of 2020, TUIfly announced that it would be stationing two Boeing 787s at Düsseldorf Airport with the start of the 2020/21 winter flight schedule . There are flights to destinations in the Caribbean and Mexico. TUIfly sees several advantages on long-haul routes, on the one hand you can then operate feeder flights for TUI Cruises under one flag. On the other hand, TUI operates a large number of hotels in the Caribbean and Mexico, so the tour operator can take its customers on vacation with its own airline.

COVID-19 pandemic

Parked TUIfly aircraft at Hannover-Langenhagen Airport due to the largely suspended air traffic due to the Corona crisis, April 2020

Due to the Corona crisis and its health and economic consequences, TUIfly will reduce its fleet by half and close several bases in Germany (including Cologne , Bremen , Münster-Osnabrück ); this was announced by a spokesman for TUIfly on June 5, 2020. At the same time you have to think about dismissing employees; accordingly, currently (as of June 2020) around 700 jobs are wobbling.

The long-haul plans would also have to be revised: "Since nobody knows at the moment when the intercontinental destinations will open and when the cruise business will start again, planning for this winter makes little sense," said the spokesman. Long-haul operations from Düsseldorf can be expected to start in winter 2021/22 at the earliest.

Business model

Boeing 737-800 of TUIfly during landing

marketing

Most of the seats are used by TUI and external tour operators for package tours. However, TUIfly does not forego individual seat sales. The TUIfly flight portal is mainly used for the sale of individual flight tickets , which is why the top-level domain ".com" is still often placed behind the name in the word and image mark and in the external presentation , and thus always the website "TUIfly.com" specified. As part of the takeover of the TUIfly city connections by Air Berlin , the internet portal tuifly.com was also realigned. Since then, the portal has not only sold its own flights, but also flights from other airlines .

Like other airlines, TUIfly offers particularly cheap flight tickets for selected flights and at certain times (with a limited contingent). However, the seats are permanently assigned; they can also be reserved at the time of booking up to 48 hours in advance for an additional fee; this is free of charge for TUI card holders.

Flight operations

Since handing over the city connections to Air Berlin in October 2009, TUIfly sees itself as a classic holiday airline for short , medium and long-haul flights . Usually, single non-stop flights are offered almost exclusively - the flights to Cape Verde, which are operated via the Las Palmas hub, are an exception ; therefore there is no larger hub at TUIfly . Furthermore, TUIfly is not a member of an aviation alliance . In some cases with the destination Las Palmas, a combined booking with a matching connecting flight is possible, which is carried out by the partner airline Binter Canarias .

In order to achieve a good utilization of the aircraft, TUIfly operates domestic German flights for the transport of airmail at night on behalf of Deutsche Post . These flights were suspended on July 1, 2009 due to austerity measures taken by the Post, but resumed only six months later. These run, for example, from Hanover to Stuttgart , with one aircraft leaving Hanover and another in Stuttgart at the same time. The planes are swapped every night.

A special feature of Hapag-Lloyd were their cruise flights. For this purpose, rows of seats were removed from a Boeing 737 in order to be able to offer passengers increased comfort. In 2007, Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten , also a subsidiary of TUI, used PrivatAir machines for this purpose ; since 2008, these flights have been operated by TUIfly again.

service

Cabin of a Boeing 737 TUIfly

Only Economy Class is offered on all TUIfly aircraft . The seat spacing averages around 74 cm. For an additional fee, it is possible to reserve individual seats with a seat pitch of 96 cm.

In September 2013, TUIfly announced that, depending on the booking method, it would in future only be able to offer meals on board for an extra fee. The amount of baggage allowance for certain tickets has also been reduced. Since January 1, 2014, no third-party magazines, blankets and pillows have been available on board. The on-board entertainment program has also been discontinued.

Frequent flyer program

TUIfly continued the frequent flyer program bluemiles from Hapag-Lloyd Flug until October 24, 2009 . Points ("miles") could be collected on all flights, which could ultimately be converted into a free flight once a certain amount was reached. When the city destinations were handed over to Air Berlin, this program was replaced by a new program called FriendChips. The new program is no longer a classic frequent flyer program, but a customer loyalty program in which participants can save themselves a discount for the next flight by collecting points while shopping online . The frequent flyer program was discontinued on October 31, 2012.

Destinations

TUIfly operates flights from Germany and Switzerland to tourist destinations in the Mediterranean , the Canary Islands and Cape Verde as well as Madeira .

From November 2020, long-haul destinations from Düsseldorf to Punta Cana , Puerto Plata and Cancún will be offered.

Bases

TUIfly has 11 bases in Germany, where employees and aircraft are stationed:

fleet

Boeing 737-700 of TUIfly in current paint scheme, Düsseldorf Airport
Boeing 737-700 of TUIfly in yellow paint scheme, which is no longer used, Bremen Airport in summer 2007

Current fleet

As of August 2020, TUIfly's fleet consists of 34 aircraft with an average age of 11.6 years:

Aircraft type number ordered Remarks Seats
(Eco + / Eco)
Average age

(August 2020)

Boeing 737-700 01 equipped with winglets , inactive 148
(- / 148)
12.3 years
Boeing 737-800 33 equipped with split scimitar winglets or blended winglets; six operated for Eurowings ; eight inactive 186
(- / 186)
189
(- / 189)
11.6 years
Boeing 737 MAX 8 25th First deliveries were planned for spring 2019, postponed indefinitely due to the grounding . Because of the failure, Boeing pays Tui damages in the amount of around 300 million euros. 189
Boeing 787-8 4th Will be stationed in Düsseldorf in winter 2021/22 at the earliest. Two will be taken over by TUI Airways . 253
(47/206)
total 34 29 11.6 years

Wet leases

In the summer months, TUIfly uses individual machines in wet lease on its route network. Between 2007 and 2008, several were Boeing 737-300 of Germania in use by the year 2010 operational Germania three Boeing 737-300 TUIfly. Various machines were also temporarily leased from XL Airways Germany and other airlines.

In the summer of 2018, an Airbus A321-200 from White Airways and one from Just Us Air were used. Due to the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX , more wet-lease machines will be used in summer 2019 ; An Airbus A321-200 from White Airways from Paderborn, an Airbus A319-100 from Sundair from Karlsruhe and an Airbus A320-200 and an Airbus A321-200 from the Romanian Just Us Air are planned.

Special paints

TUIfly often provides aircraft from its fleet with large-scale advertising or other special paintwork.

Current special paints

Aircraft type Aircraft registration Painting Period image
Boeing 737-800 D-ATUD "TUI BLUE" since February 2016 D-ATUD at STR.jpg
D-ATUI " Robinson Club Resorts" since December 2015 D-ATUI.jpg
D-ATUZ " RIU Hotels & Resorts " since February 2016 D-ATUZ.jpg
D-ABMV " Cewe photo book " since February 2020

Former special paints

Aircraft type Aircraft registration Painting Period image
Boeing 737-300 D-AGEE

D-AGEJ

" Georg Friedrich Händel / Johann Sebastian Bach " February 2007 to March 2010

January 2007 to March 2010

D-AGEE B737-35B hlx.com (Leipzig) LPA 04FEB09 (3254434488) .jpg
Boeing 737-800 D-AHFB " SharanAIR " February 2010 to March 2011 D-AHFB 2 B737-8K5W TUIfly-VW PMI 20MAY10 (6335332753) .jpg
D-AHFH " Rhineland-Palatinate " Mid-2010 to September 2014 D-AHFH (21413103458) .jpg
D-AHFI
D-AHFK
" Hannover 96 " November 2012 to November 2013

August 2011 to November 2012

Boeing 737-8K5, TUIfly JP7624515.jpg
D-AHFM " GoldbAIR " December 2008 to February 2014 D-AHFM 4 B738-8K5W TUIfly-Haribo LPA 28JAN09 (3236668162) .jpg
D-AHFR " Trainers " April 2012 to the end of 2013 D-AHFR 4 B737-8K5W TUIfly (Baren Brand) FRA 30JUN13 (9198755811) .jpg
D-AHFT " Albrecht Dürer " February 2015 to January 2017 D-AHFT (18616762209) .jpg
D-AHFY " Carinthia " January 2009 to February 2010 Boeing 737-8K5, TUIfly JP6592037.jpg
D-AHFZ "CEWE AIR" June 2012 to December 2017 D-AHFZ (31429411970) .jpg
" GlücksbringAIR " November 2009 to June 2012 D-AHFZ B737-8K5W TUIfly (spl cs) PMI 27MAY12 (7281502180) .jpg
D-ATUC " DB Air two " January 2011 to May 2014 Boeing 737-800 TUIfly D-ATUC (DB Air Two livery) (HLX - HLF) - MSN 34684 1870 (8016580529) .jpg
D-ATUD "HaribAIR" January 2010 to February 2016 D-ATUD (14458719886) .jpg
D-ATUE " DB Air one " January 2011 to November 2014 D-ATUE B737-8K5W TUIfly (DB Ice) PMI 31MAY12 (7309925866) .jpg
D-AHLK

D-ATUF

" Hapag-Lloyd cruises " December 2008 to April 2018 November 2008 to April 2018 D-AHLK B737-8K5W TUIfly-Hapag retro PMI 26SEP10 (6341095930) .jpg
D-ATUJ " Haribo Tropifrutti" April 2015 to March 2018 TUIfly Haribo Tropifrutti logojet at Hamburg Airport.jpg
D-ATUH " Cewe photo book" January 2017 to November 2019 D-ATUH (23756436338) .jpg
D-ATUG "TUI Magic Life Hotel" March 2016 to November 2019 D-ATUG (31059038091) .jpg

Previously deployed aircraft

BAC 1-11-500 of Hapag-Lloyd Flug in 1980

In the past, TUIfly and its predecessors used the following aircraft types, among others:

Incidents

TUIfly and its predecessor companies have recorded an aircraft loss with total write-off in their history:

  • On July 12, 2000, an Airbus A310-300 ( aircraft registration D-AHLB ) had to make an emergency landing on the way from Crete to Hanover at Vienna Airport . The landing gear could not be fully retracted after takeoff. Despite the increased air resistance, the captain decided to continue the flight to Munich , but fuel consumption rose sharply due to the deterioration in aerodynamics . After 2:35 hours of flight time, both engines failed due to lack of fuel. Only with a lot of luck succeeded in a gliding flight landing at Vienna-Schwechat airport , during which the aircraft was irreparably damaged. Of the 142 occupants, 26 were injured (see Hapag-Lloyd flight 3378 ) .

See also

literature

  • Wolfgang Mendorf: Deutsche Airlines and their planes since 1970 , Podszun, Brilon 2016, ISBN 978-3-86133-824-6 , pp. 106-114
  • BI Hengi: Airlines Worldwide , 9th updated edition from 2018, Nara, ISBN 978-3-925671-69-2 , p. 326

Web links

Commons : TUIfly  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: TUIfly  - travel guide

Individual evidence

  1. TUIfly employees buy their time. More investments through zero rounds? , Handelsblatt No. 101 of May 27, 2014, p. 25
  2. Focus - The airline doesn't just dislike Alltours, February 19, 2007
  3. tagesschau - Tour operators don't want to fly with “TUIfly”
  4. Wirtschaftswoche - Last shares sold: Travel group TUI exits Air Berlin, August 14, 2015
  5. Air Berlin is allowed to take over city routes from TUIfly. Archived from the original on September 12, 2009 ; accessed on December 31, 2014 .
  6. Der Spiegel - contaminated site weighing tons, July 9, 2012
  7. aero.de - TUIfly receives first B738 with Sky Interior cabin, December 14, 2010 accessed on May 25, 2015
  8. airliners.de - TUIfly changes aircraft color from canary yellow to blue, accessed on January 22, 2014
  9. airliners.de - TUIfly receives first Boeing 737 in the new design, accessed on February 17, 2014
  10. aerotelegraph.com - Why Tui will fly with Tui in the future, accessed on May 21, 2015
  11. ^ Niki deal: Etihad breaks off talks with Tui. airliners.de, accessed on July 4, 2017 .
  12. ^ Association between Tuifly and Air Berlin in planning. Der Tagesspiegel , accessed on October 1, 2016 .
  13. Winter 2020/21: Tuifly goes long-haul with Dreamliners. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. November 21, 2019, accessed on January 13, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).
  14. Tuifly shrinks, strokes and closes. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. June 5, 2020, accessed on June 5, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).
  15. newsclick.de - Less mail in the mailbox on Mondays
  16. Reisen-tip.com - Hapag Lloyd cruise flight ( Memento of November 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on October 8, 2006
  17. tuifly.com - numbers, data, facts - product
  18. Der Spiegel - Seat reservations and meals: Lufthansa and TUIfly are introducing new fees, accessed on September 6, 2013
  19. tuifly.com - FriendChips
  20. vielfliegertreff.de - TUI Frienchip program is discontinued
  21. tuifly.com - flight destinations accessed on April 12, 2017
  22. From Düsseldorf: These are the first long-distance destinations from Tuifly. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. February 3, 2020, accessed on February 4, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).
  23. a b c TUIfly Fleet Details and History. In: planespotters.net. August 6, 2020, accessed on August 6, 2020 .
  24. Interview with Oliver Lackmann, Tuifly: "A total of 25 Boeing 737 Max intended for Tuifly". In: aeroTELEGRAPH. January 14, 2019, accessed on February 25, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).
  25. Stefan Eiselin: Before first delivery: German Tuifly has to wait for Boeing 737 Max. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. January 29, 2018, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  26. Aircraft manufacturer: Boeing pays Tui compensation for 737 Max failure. Retrieved June 3, 2020 .
  27. Tuifly shrinks, strokes and closes. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. June 5, 2020, accessed on June 5, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).
  28. Dreamliner for German Tuifly: Tui orders two more Boeing 787-9s. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. February 23, 2020, accessed on February 23, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).
  29. White Air helps Tuifly with the expansion in Paderborn. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. February 4, 2019, accessed on May 9, 2019 (German).
  30. Sundair flies for Tuifly from Karlsruhe. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. February 11, 2019, accessed on May 9, 2019 (German).
  31. Tuifly increases in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. Retrieved May 9, 2019 .
  32. Germany's TUI fly to wet-lease aircraft from Just Us Air. Accessed on May 9, 2019 (English).
  33. a b planespotters.net - TUIfly Fleet Details and History (English), accessed on April 12, 2017
  34. D-AHFH | Boeing 737-8K5 | TUIfly | Brian T Richards. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  35. D-AHFH TUIfly Boeing 737-800. In: planespotters.net. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  36. D-AHFI TUIfly Boeing 737-800. In: planespotters.net. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  37. D-AHFK TUIfly Boeing 737-800. In: planespotters.net. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  38. D-AHFM TUIfly Boeing 737-800. In: planespotters.net. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  39. D-ATUC TUIfly Boeing 737-800. In: planespotters.net. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  40. TUIfly special paints. In: tuifly.com. Retrieved April 8, 2018 .
  41. Accident Report A310 D-AHLB , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on 15 December 2018th