From mid-June and beginning of July the group will resume partial operations to a limited number of destinations from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

It says it expects its remaining markets such as the UK and Nordic region to “follow suit later in the summer”. 

Yesterday (15 June) Tui restarted the summer season with two fully booked flights from Germany to Majorca and a further 20 departures are planned in the coming days, to include Faro as a second destination. 

It plans to add destinations including Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Austria, Germany and Switzerland in July. 

“Based on our current restart dates, we are planning to operate around 30% of our original capacity in Q4 2020,” Tui said in an update today. 

“Tui’s executive board together with operational management is continuously evaluating leisure travel policies and safety guidelines, and we will manage our capacity depending on customer demand and in line with the specifications as well as requirements of the authorities in our source markets and destinations.

“In this context we plan to reopen from the beginning of July around 50% of our group hotels, which may increase as travel restrictions ease through the summer. We are focusing on the advantages of our vertical integration, as we can leverage our distribution power to steer bookings into our own and third party committed assets.”

Having implemented health and safety protocols on its ships, Tui also plans to begin a gradual restart of its cruise business with short three to four day cruises this summer. 

In terms of bookings from the UK, Tui said winter 2020-21 bookings were up 6% with ASP up 5% “but remain early in the booking cycle”. It added summer 2021 “continues to look promising”.