True, however the BA passengers will then board the aircraft in an orderly manner without every passenger being subject to making sure even the smallest of cabin bags meets the ridiculously small cabin bag requirements.

The BA passengers will then enjoy a pleasant experience onboard the aircraft to their destination with customer service fitting of a reputable carrier.

There is no way to dress up this agreement, it’s going to be a disaster for TUI and their reputation. Customer complaints will be through the roof.

As I previously posted, Ryanair are good at what they do, they provide low cost safe flights, they are very good at that.

However, they care not about the customer experience.

Yet again you are missing the point entirely. Its not a secret and the passengers turn up to the airport to just find put they are flying with Ryanair. They see it / are told as part of the booking process. This IS NOT on behelf of TUI Airways, but is just a TUI travel agent booking using Ryanair (like the have in the past among many other airlines) as part of the travel itinerary. However, theres no point in keeping explaining as clearly for some reason you have a grudge against Ryanair.

They will. And the fare they pay will reflect that they're flying with a network carrier, not a no-frills airline. You get the product you pay for.

Well yes. I thought the designed in weak points easily changed would have given way.

While Tui may have lots of planes, they don't have many 787's sitting around spare...

It will be a success because TUI will now be able to offer Holidays using Ryanair Flights from Regional Airports where they dont even fly from or to.without having to utilise their own aircraft all the time.
I work in IT in Travel Industry and believe me all OTAs have been trying to get Ryanair content for years by whatever means. The fact Love Holidays, Kiwi and On the Beach have also just agreed terms with Ryanair will now give TUI the option to compete and offer Holidays to same Destinations as them

In my experience the boarding experience is virtually identical regardless of carrier or airport. Do you also have the same Aldi vs Tesco perception i wonder?

That I'd have to disagree with. For me the boarding experience is something that differentiates the ULCCs more than anything else these days. Ryanair will start priority boarding 15-20 mins before the aircraft is even ready and for that period you're stood in a narrow linkbride/corridor or worse still outside in the cold/rain. I've worked out at STN that at any one time there must be at least 1,500 pax stood between boarding gate and aircraft in busy periods. For Ryanair they have no care other than enabling an on time departure, but for the airport that's 1,500 pax that could be spending money in the Terminal and for the passenger it's generally unpleasant. Unfortunately in STN's case the Terminal building is so capacity constrained at peak times that it's a god send Ryanair start the boarding process so early.

So the question is how typical is Stansted?

And is this TUI/Ryanair agreement just for the UK, or across the other countries TUI operate out of as well?

Exactly this. When I last booked to fly with TUI online from Manchester to Cancun in 2019, we were given the choice of TUI or Thomas Cook flights. A few years previous, I remember being in a Liverpool branch of Thomas Cook when a family behind were booking a holiday to Spain. They chose flights from Liverpool and were told by travel agent that Thomas Cook flights from Liverpool are operated by easyJet and if this would be ok. So people are given a choice at the time of booking.

Summer Aircraft 2024
 

TUI appear to have now removed the 180 seater A320's from the summer timetable for Birmingham and East Midlands, and replaced them with 189 seater B737s, so presumable these will be the Fly 4 B738's

Birmingham summer base, now appears to be 1 B789, 1 B788, 2 B7M8's, and 8 B738's (6 of TUI, 2 of Fly4)

East Midlands summer base, appears to be 1 B7M8, 5 B738's, (3 of TUI, 2 of Fly4)

Id say your the only one that thought its easily changed. Im sure spare TUI 787 arent laying around easy.

Theres nothing they can do there. TUIF is badly damaged so theyd have to lease in or something.

TUI have Norse UK operating their Cancun and Barbados flights this weekend out of LGW.

787's
 

Don't be so sure. 3 x 787's sat all day on the 80's at BHX on Monday and never moved, obviously one was damaged so you can't count that but again a 789 has been on the ground 27 hours now at BHX although it is departing shortly. I suggest the scheduling department has not had its finest winter with the 787 fleet.

The Monday scenario happened quite a few times over the winter period as did the Friday one. I know BHX was originally scheduled ton have both Sal flights Monday and Friday due to be the 788 and in the end the whole season was operated by the MAX, which I am sure disrupted their plans. The Sal has done well this winter so whether it was operational or just not enough pax to bridge the gap from 189 to 300, I can't be sure

Pete

787's
 

G-TUIA B788 currently on route back to Manchester from Taipei after 6 weeks of heavy maintenance

Hope it’s had a spruce up externally as well whilst it’s been out there. All the 8’s in particular have looked tired for a number of years

G-TUIM has flown to Amman for maintenance. Hopefully G-TUIA is looking fresh from repaint.

Saw it land via a live stream at Manchester- doesnt look like its had a repaint unfortunately

I predict TUI-Ryanair will lead to lots of complaints. Even if customers know the flights are with a different airline, when the s**t hits the fan and something goes wrong, people will start searching for the TUI logo on a staff shirt.

The staff member will be unable to help as the flight would be entirely the remit of Ryanair. The poor customers will be directed from pillar to post and inevitably reduced to calling a number. You will have customers expecting the same TUI experience they know and will be disappointed when it doesn’t come true.

Or course, most will all go to plan and things won’t go wrong. But all you need is a minority and some sad faces in the Daily Mail to wreck your reputation further. I can imagine the stories:

“NHS heroes book family holiday package with TUI. Ryanair cancelled their flights and TUI hasn’t found new ones. Holiday cancelled and the children are so upset. We will never book through TUI again.”

At least with TUI flights operated by a third party the overall responsibility and organisation of that flight remains with TUI, and TUI will be the ones arranging a flight and scheduling possible replacements; they won’t be relying on a third party to do it who might not want to do it.

As you say, most Ryanair flights operate as advertised and hopefully customers expectations will be met. If there is a problem with a Ryanair flight I would only expect a few TUI passengers to be affected and providing TUI have the proper customer support the situation can be managed. The problem might arise where there is a significant disruption to the flying program and lots of flights are cancelled when TUI, if they don’t have sufficient resources in place, might struggle in meeting customers expectations.

I don't think that the TUI / Ryanair tie up is necessarily aimed at the families market, but instead allows TUI to compete more successfully as an online travel agent knitting together a Ryanair seat with a hotel that TUI has used its buying power to secure a better deal to destinations where there isn't a large TUI conventional package tour presence. This essentially helps TUI compete with the "Love Holidays" kind of operations for weekend breakers.

The "NHS hero" family is far more likely to prefer the fortnight at a TUI all-inclusive resort that will probably be offered more competitively on an inhouse TUI organised / flown flight.