TUI/ First Choice

[bycrewlgw]

will the airlines and travel companies change their names again? I know that they will come under the one umbrella of TUI Travel, but will they still remain under their separate identities of Thomsonfly / TUIfly and First choice Airways?

[flyer55]

Wonder what terminal they will use at LGW as First Choice in North and Thomson in South ? And how jobs will go in Cabin Crew ?

[johnrizzo2000]

I dont think they're going to merge the First Choice and Thomson brands, or both of their airlines. They're both strong brands in the UK. Other synergies will help them lower costs, and maybe in a few years, they'll look to merging brands

[SkidMX]

It is just a pure shame for the staff of First Choice and Thomson who will be the big losers in all this when their made redundant. But what does Mr Long care? He's got his pay rise!

I suppose there will be no 'synergy' savings for the MYT/Thomas Cook link up then Thomas Cook 757-300!

Oh well what does Manny care, he's no doubt got his pay rise too!

Touche

Skid

[PapaBurgundy]

As with any merger I think there's a sense of intrepidation and excitement. With the merger of MYT/TC going ahead I think this is a positive step from both parties to both safeguard their respective businesses and provide healthy market competition that might have otherwised been monopolised by the TCG. From a 737 TFLY pilot's point of view, I think as long our T&C's are protected by both CC's (not sure of FC T&C's) and lines of communication from boardroom to front line staff are kept open (not so in the last 18mths) this could be an excellent opportunity for the group to obtain a substantial stake in the UK travel market. Look forward to working with the First Choice guys. Bring it on Thomas Cook Groupies...!

Papa Burgundy

[Pin Head]

Is it written officially on paper about this total 23 787 fleet that PL has mentioned. I know that FCA have 12 but what about the other 11?

[World of Tweed]

Anyone got shares in the paintshop?

Regards the important stuff...

What colour do you get when you mix pink and blue paint?



The 23 787 comes from the pdf file press release/notice of meger thats on the first choice website. The link for which is on an earlier page of this thread.

[bjones4]

Is it written officially on paper about this total 23 787 fleet that PL has mentioned. I know that FCA have 12 but what about the other 11?

In December TUI announced that it had placed an order previously with Boeing for 41 aircraft, although they didn't state a mix of narrow or widebody (and still havn't confirmed any types or numbers) but the price they were spending and the number they were aquiring meant there had to be mix, 41 of the most expensive 737s wouldn't come close to the bill.

In September on the week ending the 21st, an Unidentified order for 41 aircraft was added to Boeings website, that was made up of 11 787-8s, and 30 737s, a mix of 14 73G and 16 738.

It's believed that this order collectively (which still remains UFO) is the one TUI group placed.

If you work it through with public list prices the value roughly comes out the same as what TUI stated they were spending and now with documents referring to an additional 11 aircraft it makes it even more likely that these aircraft are indeed for them.

[baps]

World of Tweed, What colour do you get when you mix pink and blue paint?..... Probably Yellow!!!

[Baron buzz]

Redundancies?

I, like someone else earlier in the post, do not believe there will be pilot redundancy. Any reduction in pilot numbers will come from not recruiting this year (which Thomson are currently doing are they not?), or by not recruiting next year. That in itself would reduce numbers considerably - since FCA recruited almost 80 last year and 15 or so this year, i'm sure Thomson recruited (recruiting?) considerably more. Also, as someone else has pointed out, I believe if redundancy was offered many across both companies would probably jump at it. I do not believe that pilots are really the ones in danger here, but I could of course be proved wrong! I feel sorry for all the doubled up staff such as ops/crewing/admin/travel agents/all the other groups of people that will no doubt be worse affected than us.

I also have the opinion that regardless how strong Thomson/First Choice are as UK brands, neither will exist in a couple of years. Thomson has been having a bit of an identity crisis for a while (Britannia-Thomson-TuiFly??), so it makes sense that one travel company should have one airline, probably TuiTravel written in some horrible, lurid colour down the side!

Good luck to all involved, and hopefully when we know more, people on both sides of the fence can look forward to this......?

There is of course an issue that may affect us all, and that is basing. What will happen at regional bases where there is a small presence of both airlines? For example - BRS and CDF. Thomson has alot going on at CDF, FCA alot at BRS, but is there sufficient demand if it was all one airline for there to be as many flights? BRS is top favourite with FCA at the moment and CDF a good one with TOM - both of whom have started successful long haul programs from both airports. Who knows, but I suggest that this has been in the planning for a while and someone already knows the fate! It will take alot to merge such big operations together and relatively simple things such as which terminal at MAN/LGW will prove to be some headache with the crewrooms being in totally different places too!!

[dashhead]

BB,

we took on 62 pilots last year and 13 this year.

Don't think the crew room/terminal issue will be a big deal at MAN as we both use T2 and our crewrooms are about 20 metres apart. As for LGW, the north terminal is alot nicer than south (I frequently position through both at the companies behest) and I would suspect Jubilee house has space for a combined operation.

As a FCA 757/767 pilot I think the merger could be very very positive for both parties in the longer term. Whatever your views on management Peter Long has an enviable reputation for driving things forward and seeing oportunities before anyone else. Reading the TUI threads, its seems this is an area that has been a weakness re existing management strategy (or lack thereof!).


Interesting times ahead.

DH

[shortcut_approved]

Hi everyone,

Would anyone from First Choice be able to comment on current numbers based at LGW? I'm with Thomson, desperately trying to get LGW-based, but have been told that it's full for the forseeable future. Just wondering if this joint venture may help the situation!

Cheers,
Shortcut

[thomsonfly.com]

Will the merged airline order the 737-700 to replace the -300 and -500 series on scheduled routes, as surely the scheduled bases would be contributing considerably to the merged company, but the 737-800 being too big for this type of operation, particularly from CVT.

Considering that the Airbus A321s from FCA were due to leave in October anyway with the leases expiring this doesn't pose any issue to the newly merged airline, the issue will be the remaining six A320s which will pose an anomaly in an otherwise all-Boeing fleet.

[World of Tweed]

Backtrack... I must admit that you post does make sense from the point of view of TOM/FCA. ... in fact maybe you should email that to someone ??

But just for some food for thought....and admitidly to stir up a few reactions... Hows about this?

Taking a Global view of the fleet across all of the group airlines, HLF, FCA and Corsair operate the 'Bus albeit in various guises and small numbers but.....

Perhaps it would be worth courting Airbus to come in with a sidewinding "cheap as chips" offer?

With the combined fleet size of 130 a/c the operation (europeanwide) would probably benefit from a dual manufacturer fleet. Particularly in terms of negotiating lease rates and aquisitions in the future.

Arguably the Bus's are probably more suited to some routes/biz models of which I'm sure we will have many!!

In fact, I gather that in winter 2003/04 the group was a Gnats wisker away from signing with airbus.... stranger things have happened.

Thomsonfly.com:

I thought we didn't have any dedicated "Scheduled" bases left?

And if the B738 is too big why on EARTH are we getting so many of them?

More importantly why will I be flying a 757 into CVT in next month? Is there something I should know?

[tflier]

The B738 is not too big. It's a performance issue primarily on a wet Coventry runway. The B757 has twice as many brakes as the B738.

[westie]

Thompsonfly, one one 321 went recently and the other still have few years on them as do the 320's. Not sure though of the exact amounts of lease time left. I guess there's always a gert though but at a cost???

[sky9]

I would just love to know the total amount of bonuses the management have received in Tui since they brought Thomsons for £1.7b in 20000 then merged the whole group for £900m in 2007.

On any basis that has got to be the worst deal the Preussag shareholders have got from their incompetent management during a time when the UK stockmarket has doubled in value. Its amazing that so many of them still have jobs in the new setup.

[Leofric]

If Coventry's runway was the only reason for having 737s smaller than the -800, then they would only have four, as it is there will be about 14 this summer. So presumably the smaller aircraft are a suitable size for quite a lot of routes where runway performance is not an issue?

[OltonPete]

Coventry

When the poster "thomsonfly.com" states that the 738 is too big for Coventry then it is probably seat wise. The CAA stats show the following for 2006: -

Coventry - Amsterdam 49119 pax which is about an average of 75-80
Coventry - Orly 55745 which again is about an average of 80-85
Coventry - PISA 23879 which is about 90 -100
Coventry - Barcelona 74490 which is just over 100
Coventry - Malaga 75197 (the best) is about 110.
Coventry - Alicante 71097, which is about 100+ again

Not brilliant on a 149 seat 733, probably acceptable (some) on a 131 seat
735 but they won't be around for much longer. Plenty of empty seats to fill if it was a 189 seat 738.

OP

[cvt person]

As all the routes out of Coventry were sold in 2006 as 737-500 routes loads were probably satisfactory. Now two of the 500s have gone and some routes are being sold as 737-300 we just might see the loads go up! However in all this it is not the number of seats that are occupied that count but the revenue they generate. For example it is rumoured that some of the empty seats particularly on Spanish routes had been paid for by tour operators but not used.
On the 737-800 and 757 issue both have been seen at Coventry although probably more of the latter and both have operated in the wet.