TUI Airways

[ROC10]

Originally Posted by rog747

The 757's were all supposed to be gone by this winter's end, that was the plan for 757 retirement, but as we know of the 12 (3 have just gone) 9 remain and afaik their disposal has been postponed (indef?)

I don't think TUI have been inept in anyway since March when the MAX was grounded (They had 7 in service that week, with 3 more due, plus loads due for next summer, plus the -10 series too)
I think they handled the whole ACMI lease-in for their S2019 program immensely well considering the grounding occurred just weeks before the Summer season, but at a huge cost to them - The forecast was 600m euros.

The Sunwing lease arrangement of their fleet returning to Canada for the winter is a historic one as you know (Like AE did the same with Air Florida, and Air2000 with Canada3000)
But Sunwing have their own MAX grounded too, so do we assume the same number of 737NG's come back to TUI for Summer 2020?
Some that are going back to Canada now have retained G- reg's.

As it seems the RTS of the MAX rolls over to at least Q2 2020 TUI can now decide what fleet arrangements are needed to cover the groundings.

TUI have announced massive expansions and added destinations (2m more seats) so it needs planes...

No, I don’t think it was the plan (at least for a while) for all the 757s to go. I think people are mainly getting this from Jethros which can be inaccurate. Of course some have left as some did last year, and I think TUI extended some leases into 2020/21 even before the MAX issues.

The 9 aircraft that have gone to Sunwing have not gone “back” to Canada, they are TUI UK aircraft that are going on lease for winter, reducing TUI’s fleet size and probably forcing them to lease in ACMI for STN and possibly other bases. It all seems silly considering they have the planes but they’ve gone to Canada, but I guess these arrangements have been in place for a while, as does the fact that all frames to go over have been younger ones with Sky Interior – most of the older 738s that TUI are stuck with were probably due to be withdrawn like ZE has been. Perhaps as a result TUI will have negotiated a more generous offering from Sunwing next summer with more of theirs coming over. They do also have the MAX but it may return to service in Canada sooner than in the UK. That being said, I think TUI are pretty reluctant to go too far with Sunwing usage as they are generally notorious for huge delays and poor performance which affects TUI’s reputation.

The expansion is certainly ambitious and probably would have been a slight challenge even with a reasonable fleet of MAXs, likely having to retain some older aircraft. Without the MAX it looks over-optimistic and they may have to make some serious decisions about cutting some of it back. I’m sure they have plans though.