TUI were a good loyal choice in my view. They’ve just been unable to build on that for whatever reason, and I believe one reason is lack of sufficient demand due to too many competitor airports in the vicinity…..That brings us back to DSA’s location and it’s proximity to some fairly major players.
TUI were a safe bet..they didn’t offer the terms to Monarch when they could have (I know that didn’t work out for anyone) demand is for the flights/holidays not the airport, regardless of Departure location (within a region/reasonable travel time) whoever offers the right product at the right price will win the custom. If it survives DSA needs to fight hard for the operators (plural) that offer the product, rather than stay safe (with TUI). I’m not bashing TUI here, the current DSA would be nothing without them.