TUI Airways Limited (formerly Thomsonfly and Thomson Airways) is a British

charter airline Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a ticket through a traditional airline). Regulation Charter – also called air taxi or ad hoc – flights ...

, offering scheduled and charter flights from the United Kingdom and Ireland to destinations in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. The airline is the world's largest

, carrying 11.8 million passengers in 2019. It is also the fourth-largest UK airline by total passengers carried, after

EasyJet EasyJet plc (styled as easyJet) is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate air ...

British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...

and

Jet2.com Jet2.com Limited is a British low-cost leisure airline offering scheduled and charter flights from the United Kingdom. As of 2022, it is the third-largest scheduled airline in the UK, behind EasyJet and British Airways. Jet2 is also official ...

. TUI Airways is also the world's tenth-largest airline by number of route pairings served. Its UK and associated regional arm is TUI Airways Ltd which holds a

United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is the statutory corporation which oversees and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom. Its areas of responsibility include: * Supervising the issuing of pilots' licences, testing of e ...

(CAA) Type A Operating Licence permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats. Its head office and Registered Office is Wigmore House in

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...

History

TUI Airways has its origins in several rival airlines. ''Euravia'' (later renamed

Britannia Airways Britannia Airways was a charter airline based in the UK. It was founded in 1961 as Euravia and became the world's largest holiday airline. Britannia's main bases were at London Gatwick, London Stansted, London Luton, Cardiff, Bristol, East M ...

in December 1964.), an airline which was founded in January 1962.

Orion Airways Orion Airways (known simply as 'Orion') was an airline based in the United Kingdom with its head office on the grounds of East Midlands Airport in Castle Donington, North West Leicestershire."World Airline Directory." '' Flight International'' ...

, founded in 1979 by Horizon Holidays and later owned by the large brewing firm

Bass Brewery The Bass Brewery () was founded in 1777 by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. The main brand was Bass Pale Ale, once the highest-selling beer in the UK. By 1877, Bass had become the largest brewery in the world, with ...

and

InterContinental Hotels Group InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), marketed as IHG Hotels & Resorts, is a British multinational hospitality company headquartered in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the ...

, was sold and merged with Britannia Airways in 1989 but retained the Britannia name. ''(These events happened before TUI came to the UK.)'' Britannia was rebranded to

Thomsonfly Thomsonfly was a British charter and scheduled airline. Thomsonfly was the first stage of TUI AG's plans to expand its business within TUI UK prior to September 2007. After TUI UK merged with First Choice Holidays in September 2007, it beca ...

in May 2005 as their parent company Thomson Travel Group were bought by

TUI Group TUI Group is a German leisure, travel and tourism company. TUI is an acronym for ''Touristik Union International'' ("Tourism Union International"). TUI AG was known as Preussag AG until 1997 when the company changed its activities from mining to ...

as part of a wider reorganisation of TUI's operations in the UK. The other airline,

Air 2000 First Choice Airways Limited was a British charter airline of European tour operator TUI Travel PLC, based in Crawley, England until its merger with Thomsonfly to form Thomson Airways (now TUI Airways) in 2008. It flew to more than 60 destina ...

that was founded in 1987, and which integrated the operations of Leisure International Airways in 1998. They became

First Choice Airways First Choice Airways Limited was a British charter airline of European tour operator TUI Travel PLC, based in Crawley, England until its merger with Thomsonfly to form Thomson Airways (now TUI Airways) in 2008. It flew to more than 60 destinat ...

in 2004 after being bought by First Choice and became their in-house airline. Thomsonfly and First Choice Airways merged following the merger of the travel divisions of

and

First Choice Holidays First Choice Holidays Limited (trading as First Choice) is a British online travel agency and tour operator, headquartered in Luton, England. It is a subsidiary of TUI UK, itself a subsidiary of TUI Group, and its holidays are sold in TUI stores ...

in September 2007. The Thomson Airways brand was launched for the combined airline on 1 November 2008. The new brand retained the Thomsonfly colour scheme, and aircraft in the fleet were gradually repainted. Several First Choice Airways aircraft remained in the First Choice livery as they were due to be phased out of service. A new livery, named "Dynamic Wave" (which will also be applied on Thomson Cruises ships), was introduced in May 2012. TUI Airways became the first UK airline to take delivery of the

Boeing 787 Dreamliner The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is an American Wide-body aircraft, wide-body jet airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After dropping its unconventional Boeing Sonic Cruiser, Sonic Cruiser project, Boeing announced th ...

, receiving the first aircraft in May 2013. Passenger services with the aircraft began on 21 June 2013 with a flight between

London Gatwick Gatwick Airport (), also known as London Gatwick , is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, south of Central London. In 2021, Gatwick was the third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after Hea ...

and

Menorca Menorca or Minorca (from la, Insula Minor, , smaller island, later ''Minorica'') is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. Its name derives from its size, contrasting it with nearby Majorca. Its cap ...

. Also in 2013, the parent group TUI Travel, now known as TUI Group, ordered 70

Boeing 737 MAX The Boeing 737 MAX is the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, a narrow-body airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), a division of American company Boeing. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) and competes with ...

for delivery to group airlines.

Rebrand

On 13 May 2015, it was announced by the TUI Group that all five of TUI's airline subsidiaries would be named TUI, whilst keeping their separate Air Operators Certificate, a process 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" callsign was dropped and replaced with "TUI AIR" and then changed again to "TOMJET". 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.

Corporate affairs

Overview

The airline is part of a single-branded group, being the product of two mergers: the travel division of

with First Choice Holidays in September 2007 to form TUI Travel, under which their respective airlines,

and

, were merged under the former's Air Operator's Certificate in May 2008 and rebranded as Thomson Airways on 1 November 2008. The investable enterprise and overall leadership formally merged with TUI to form London (

LSE LSE may refer to: Computing * LSE (programming language), a computer programming language * LSE, Latent sector error, a media assessment measure related to the hard disk drive storage technology * Language-Sensitive Editor, a text editor used ...

) and Frankfurt ( DAX) listed

since 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 TUI fly Netherlands, legally incorporated as ''TUI Airlines Netherlands'' (formerly branded as ''Arkefly'' and ''Arke''), is a Dutch charter airline headquartered in Schiphol-Rijk on the grounds of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in Haarlemmermeer, ...

and

TUI fly Nordic TUI fly Nordic is a charter airline headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and is a part of the TUI Group. It operates short, medium and long-haul flights to leisure destinations from several airports in the Nordic countries, on behalf of the tour ...

Head office

The airline's head office is in the Wigmore House near

. The facility is adjacent to

Luton Airport London Luton Airport is an international airport located in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, situated east of the town centre, and north of Central London. The airport is owned by London Luton Airport Ltd (LLAL), a company wholly owned by L ...

Business figures

Destinations

Most scheduled flights operated by TUI Airways are on behalf of tour operators. The airline offers flights to destinations around the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...

and the Indian Ocean from 19 base airports in the United Kingdom. Additionally, seasonal charter routes are served from

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

and

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

Fleet

Current fleet

As of December 2022, the TUI Airways Ltd fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Historical fleet

TUI Airways formerly operated the following aircraft:

References

External links

* {{Navbox Airlines of the United Kingdom Airlines established in 2008 British Air Transport Association Companies based in Luton Companies based in Crawley Charter airlines of the United Kingdom TUI Group British companies established in 2008 2008 establishments in England British subsidiaries of foreign companies