I suggest part of Jet2 success, certainly up north, was the demise of TCX & MON. TUI, via their German masters were very slow to react but with fingers in many pies across Europe, their focus is not always UK.

Great summary; if Air 2000 is added to this c20(?) does it prove the original poster’s statement that there hasn’t been any real growth in the airline???

It's a very difficult question to answer because of the mergers, acquisitions and failures which have taken place in this sector in the timeframe being discussed. What was Britannia 25 years ago - Britannia, Britannia + Air 2000, Britannia + Air 2000 + Leisure International?

The best I could come up with from 1997 CAA stats and setting Palmair Flightline and Sabre to one side (apologies to anyone offended, more likely by Palmair than Sabre!):

TUI
Air 2000 - 4 x A320, 12 x 757 with 4.2 million passengers
Britannia - 18 x 757, 6 x 767-200, 3 x 767-300 with 7.5 million passengers
Leisure International - 2 x A320, 1 x A321, 2 x 767-300 with 1.2 million passengers
Total of 48 aircraft and 12.9 million passengers


Thomas Cook
Airtours - 10 x A320, 7 x 757, 3 x 767-300 with 4.7 million passengers
Airworld - 5 x A320/321 with 0.7 milion passengers
Caledonian - 3 x A320, 6 x TriStar, 1 DC10-30 with 1.6 million passengers
Flying Colours - 1 x A320, 6 x 757 with 1.1 million passengers
Total of 42 aircraft and 8.1 million passengers

Monarch
4 x A300, 5 x A320, 1 x A321, 6 x 757, 1 x DC10-30 - Total of 17 aircraft with 4.4 million passengers

With the huge growth of easyJet since that time, it's also even more difficult to make any meaningful comparisons. I suppose if you added Thomas Cook and Monarch together and assumed that equalled Jet2 today (albeit in nothing other than size, not by lineage - unlike the Britannia comparison) then you'd conclude Jet2 and TUI should be about the same size with TUI ahead by a whisker. But the only thing you can say with any certainty is that over a timescale of 25 years, it's incredibly difficult and subjective to draw proper comparisons!

Whatever they've called themselves and whatever they fly and whoever they borrow them from, TUI is but a shadow of what was Britannia Airways. What would Derek Davison, Bob Parker-Eaton et al make of it all ?

Thanks,
I had on purpose, not included the Nordic destined 737-800's as they were not long in the UK operation,and I was really just looking at the main BY fleet for around 1999, but thank you for pointing them out.

As for the 767-204ER's they had AFAIK -
G-BPOB G-BRIF G-BRIG G-BYAA G-BYAB G-BNYS
also did they still have at that time (late 1990's) 767-204s G-BNCW G-BKPW G-BKVZ (not ER) ?

Air 2000 (AMM) who had by 1999 just taken over Leisure International's fleet too, giving them a total of four 767-300ER's (AMM had cancelled the UKL order for four new A330-200) then the combined fleets would be vastly bigger, but that would all come in later years.

Holiday Change
 

Just got an email from Tui saying that my flight to Egypt is now with somebody called GO2SKY,I have never heard of them plus the holiday change says South terminal and e ticket says North terminal.

I flew on an elderly 737-8 of GO2SKY, although the flight was late and the cabin needed a rub down with a damp cloth the crew were excellent.
My lady friend who is blind flew with me and received first class service from one stewardess, found them to be friendlier and more pleasant than a lot of BA crews.

Holiday change
 

Looking at their fleet the one that’s operating for TUI currently is a former TUI group frame so probably has their older interior anyway and by the looks of it it’s in full TUI livery

Ah apologies, I had forgotten about G-BPOB. I think the non-ER’s had all gone to Ansett(?) by mid 90’s.

actually its registration was G-BOPB

At the start of 2023, there were various announcements that Southwind would fly between the UK and Turkey for TUI. Clearly this fell through. I can think of various reasons why it might not have happened, but is anybody with good knowledge of this able to say the reason why it didn't happen ?

Yes, I'm aware of the owner of Pegas Touristik (as well as Nordwind and Southwind) setting up a new travel agency for UK-Turkey flights in 2024. Yes, I also know that Southwind are flying between Germany and Turkey. Yes, I also know that Southwind has a somewhat unusual background, but I don't want to put words in the mouth of whoever answers my question.

allnamestaken1, hello, looking back it was a 737-4 OM-GTA, we flew back from Lanzarote to either Bristol or Birmingham in 2016.
I am sure it will be fine, just be thankful it is not Avion Express.

Another used 738 delivered to Luton today

While the comparisons with Jet2 are being discussed, I think a comparionson between the ACMI carriers and operations used by the two needs to be mentioned.

The 3 AirExplore frames working for Jet2 at EMA have not had a single sector land more than 45 minutes after scheduled in the last week.
The 2 smartwings frams at BHX have 1 late sector in the last week between them.
The 2 Airtankers and 1 World2Fly at MAN have had 1 sector in the past week land an hour late.
The 2 Titans at STN have been late twice.
Meanwhile just look at the flight records of any TUI ACMI frame and it'll be full of late departures and arrivals, cancelled flights and tech issues.

All aircraft being used by LS (except the World2Fly A330 which has avery comfortable interior anyway) are fitted out with the jet2 cabin, basic Jet2 livery, and are fully crewed by Jet2 staff in passenger facing roles (with ACMI carrier crew in the flightdeck). To the layman, the experience and product provided is virtualy indistiguishable, and typically reliable. The carriers chosen by LS to provide flights on their behalf are clearly of a much better standard, and a little bit of extra investment from LS to put their own award winning product and bodies on board the aircraft will pay off 10 fold with happy customers returning, while TUIs will be more likely put off.

The lack of detail in this post made me check jethros….so it’s G-TUKR which is mentioned above.

G-FDZR was listed as returning a while ago, does anyone know what’s happened to ZR or when it will enter service??

Add to this they chose alternative operators because they tried Smartlynx the last two years at BHX and were littered with problems. So they didn’t do the same things and expect different results, they identified a problem and solved it effectively!

You can't really compare the TUI ACMIs and Jet2 ACMIs reliablilty, because not all the delays are to do with the airframes. Jet2 on the whole self handle, so more efficient, TUI don't, and I believe pay the minimum amount to the ground handlers so don't do a good service from them. Destinations/slot restricitions/aircraft turn around times etc are also different for the 2 airlines. And again the TUI ACMI aircraft are often brought in at the last minute, to cover TUI's own aircraft issues!!

Please tell me the irony of TUI getting rid of 737s and then chartering back those same 737s is not lost on TUI fleet management.