TUI Travel PLC to start trading on Monday
 

Tui Travel PLC will start trading on Monday the 3rd of September.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Will FCA and Thomsonfly become one airline? When?

2. Will FCA keep their Airbuses?

3. Where are the headquarters for Tui Travel PLC?

Any other news????

With some answers as best we know but i am sure there will be others who know a bit more.

1.Yes, not sure when as we need to sort out a few things first, sop's and dreaded seniority lists and alike.
2. Not sure but the rest of the tui world is boeing bar one or two anomilies.
3.Think they are staying at LGW but most of thomsons offices are at luton.

Who knows really.

anyone else know different

259:confused:

From what I've heard, nothing official though, there will be substantially more of the FC big bods staying put than the Thomson big bods despite the travel shops being made up of way more Thomson than FC.

Probably not much help, sorry!

Coastergirl

TUI shares
 

Just a quick question to those more financially savvy than me. Why did MR.Long and the chief financial officer of the thomson/firstchoice merged company immediately sell their shares? As reported in the financial mail today, with their conclusion that they obviously mdon't reckon much to the future success.

FCA will go, to become one airline under TOM AOC.

...and then Thomsonfly will be rebranding as TUIFly in 2008 (March I seem to recall!)

I don't know the history of the two gentlemen concerned but if either were previously involved with either airline, but if they were they almost certainly would have held stock in said company.
It is usual for senior directors to be paid or given bonuses in shares upon the proviso that they don't sell for a given period of time (at least 12 months) or until the company is sold - whichever is the sooner.

It appears that upon the merger of the comapnies, they've exercised their rights and hopefully made a tidy sum.

1. Will FCA and Thomsonfly become one airline? When?
Yep. Merger process to start immediately. Operating under single CAA licence from April 2008. Effectively FCA to disappear and become Thomson/TUIfly

2. Will FCA keep their Airbuses?
Not for long

3. Where are the headquarters for Tui Travel PLC?
Crawley for the travel company big bods, Luton for the airline

TUI Merger
 

FCA people are due to get a booklet in the next couple of days that gives us full details of what is happening initially and the time frame they are working too.

With FCA having by far the superior long haul product, will the merger see a return to all 767-300 aircraft being 'cattle class' configured as per the current TOM arrangement?

Having used both TOM and FCA, the Star Class cabins certainly have an edge that cannot be matched by any UK charter or Scheduled (economy) operator. I am sure many would agree that it would be a great shame to see this great product withdrawn.

-BHXboy-

TOM have had a superior economy class on all long-haul 7673's since the beginning of Summer '07 (and very good it is too!)

BE

yes the proposal is that:

PLC people will be head quartered at Crawley
FC Specialist and Active will be head quartered in Crawley
Mainsteam tour operating and airline will be head quartered at Luton

both brands will remain on the high street and as "package holidays"

Will be sad to see the FCA brand go and it's A320 and A321s. Will this mean a major cut in services? Shame for MAN and LGW is so as this is a MAJOR part of the airports' businesses.

FCA have by far the superior level of service on their long haul aircraft and I can see the TOM brand being upgraded again if the FCA big bods are to stay in at the airline. Goes abit against the FCA new ideas where specialist holidays are of the main order such as new destinations in Cuba and Costa Rica etc. where other carriers have not yet ventured, whereas TOM are more 'build your own holiday' company who are a major force in the European holiday market (largest in the world in fact!) but they are lacking the 'umph!' on the long haul services that FCA are currently offering.

Hopefully we will see the FCA phylosophy on the long haul routes and the TOM routine on the short haul routes to Canaries, Med. etc.

Who woul ever have thought - Air 2000 and Britannia becoming one under the name of TUIfly!:{

This may be old news, but I was pricing up some flights from CVT/BHX-AGP to day and on the Thomsonfly website they have "enhanced" the pricing by adding a pay for luggage to go in the hold section, 1 piece of luggage up to 20Kg for £10, 2 pieces 320 etc.. :mad:

Must be Ryanair at that price!

I went into a FC Shop in Leeds the other day, And 'casually' asked the saleslady 'what's what' and she said that FCA will stay alongside TOM??

I wouldn't have thought this, But the FC Shops will trade alongside TOM Shops.

The Shops obviously are still in the 'dark' then??:hmm:

To answer the question will there be a reduction in holidays/flights, I would have thought that they will be more capacity now.

I was told that, TOM are behind the CAA with the new Airspace zones which will be changed for next year.

DSH will now get it's own Airspace, As TOM have pushed for better flight routes for it's expanding operations.

DSH will acquire Airspace right down to Gamston, Netherthorpe, And to the East at Sandtoft.

GA Aircraft will have a smaller 'playground':hmm:

Regards.:ok:

"BYALPHAINDIA", TUI Travel have said that both shops will run along side of each other and no large scale closing will take place as in the TCX/MYT merger.
It was pointed out that even if a shop is losing money it might not even close due to shop lease costs, in that it might be more expensive to shut the shop.
Shops will be reviewed when leases are up for renewal.
This is what l can remember from the travel press.

LONDON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Travel giant Tui Travel could dump its TUIfly.com low-cost airline brand, the firm's finance director said on Wednesday.
"The simple answer is yes it is being reviewed (TUIfly branding)," Paul Bowtell told analysts and reporters.
"I think it's clear for all to see that that decision, together with incremental capacity in that source market in 2007, hasn't been successful," he added.
The firm is currently in the middle of a strategic review and is to detail it decisions by January.

I think this was to be expected...Peter Long has a £35,000,000 savings plan in the airlines - the low cost sector of Thomsonfly in the UK has no presence, not sure about Germany...shame for the crews, i'm sure BOH, CVT and Doncaster we're great small bases to be at but it simply doesn't fit the TUI Travel model...

in reply to the above quote

i"'m sure BOH, CVT and Doncaster we're great small bases to be at but it simply doesn't fit the TUI Travel model... "

these bases are all great bases to be at not were to be at, CVT this summer has had very high load factors all season and have heard on the grapevine another 5 year deal has been signed with the handling agents thier so obviously it does fit into the tui travel model, the reason we have gone to 2 aircraft apparently is that they cant source any other 737 -300`s to go here just yet and as the original last 2 500` OC OD go back to their leasor at the end of the winter season thats why we only have 2 737`s for the summer neaxt year who knows we may see a 757 in CVT??????????

He's talking about TuiFly not Thomsonfly. Tuifly are in Germany aren't they?

TUI Business Update.

It has been a holiday from hell so far for investors in TUI Travel, the company formed from combining the Thomson Holidays with the UK's First Choice. It is not easy, given the competition from low-cost airlines.

TUI said that it was also considering scrapping TUIfly, its struggling low-cost airline.

Airsurfer

Read nothing into a 5 year handling agreement other than that it has determined their costs over this period. I would place a LARGE wad that it has the standard 90 day termination clause within the agreement.

The CVT, BOH, DSA operations are developing loco markets. Do Tuifly/Thomsonfly have the background for developing this? or, are they specialist in a different sector?

Personally, I hope they stick with it but I would not put any money on the direction they are going on the basis of a small (and yes, it IS small in their terms) ground handling agreement at CVT.

GH

I think you will find the five year agreement at Coventry was with the airport and was part of the package when TUI sold the airport to the current operators.

People here need to be totally aware that TuiFly is based in Germany and consists of HLX Express and one other I think. ThomsonFly is the low cost part of Thomson (now Tui Travel) and is just the seat only component part. Although some of ThomsonFly's low cost division is stand alone (BOH and CVT etc etc) some of the low cost bit operates on the charter 75's. Ie: Some of the 757s carry ThomsonFly low cost pax as well.

Im probably not explaining it very well, but Tui Fly and Thomson Fly are two different airlines owned (now) by the same company.

The "question mark" I was refering to was the UK B737-300 operation - low cost airlines do not fit into Peter Longs portfolio. He will be doing his hardest to bring FC's margins back towards 5% instead of TOM's 2% - and he's achieved this by cutting back...and cutting back somemore...the very opposite of TOM, which is based on size...

Looking outside of the UK, Corsair..???? Mmmm..big savings to be had..

Will it definately be next March before FCA and TOM become one airline? I am flying with FCA to Punta Cana in December and really hope that I get to sample the First Choice long haul product before the airline disappears.

Possibilities:

1) Merge all the TUI airlines in Europe + FCA (probably best under yet another unrelated brand) then spin it off as a seperate airline / company.

2) Same as above but keep long haul airline in the group.

3) Sell all airlines to an exisiting airline, lets say easyJet and enter into a long term deal with them to for TUI to provide hotels and other ancillaries to EZY and EZY to provide allocations and special rates on seats to TUI to sell on their packages.

4) Keep it all in house as now but continue the shift to medium and long haul

5) Use the new yellow planes to start a cargo operation in partnership with DHL

ThePeacock - not 14 by any chance are you???

Interesting one about EZY and hotels. Did you know that the hotel search engine on Easyjet.com is Hotelopia? And did you also know that Hotelopia is a Tui travel group company?
The airlines will become 'in effect' one airline when the AOC is merged about next April. This will not be an easy or quick process. Even after that, there is no firm decision on what will become of First Choice Airways or Thomsonfly (as airline brands). Anyone booked on either companys plane for the forseeable future will not notice any changes.
As regards the low cost part. It will be part of Peter Long's plan if he can make it make money, that is for sure. He did also say in one of his press releases that the merger will create an airline big enough to take on the locos. So it doesnt sound to me like he wants to start closing things down.

First Choice also have a seat allocation on Thomsonfly selling holidays from Doncaster...this was announced last month so I assume that would be for Winter 07/08 and into Summer 08???

Starts Summer 2008

Why don't they shut down the struggling TUIfly, pull out of Germany apart from the occasional charter and send the 737s over to Jetair, Thomsonfly-FCA and TUIfly Nordic? I would say Corsair but they aren't doing short-haul anymore are they? Simple solution isn't it ?!?
But I suppose Germany is where TUI started off so... probably not ?

What am I going to get for saying that ?!? :ugh:

Does anyone know if this spells the end for the C Reg leases, probably wrong here but was it SSV - FCA & MYT for the UK Summer Season :confused:

I would not be suprised if thet try and do a deal and sell off or float TUIfly a bit like what Thomas Cook Group plc are doing with Condor/Air Berlin.
TC have been quite smart with that deal as DE were not making a profit, this way they own just under 30% of Air Berlin without the risk.
But will have to wait and see what TUI decide.