TUI Airline in 2025

[Atlantis]

The last remaining TUI BE 787 will be moved to another TUI Airline as from next winter. No more TUI long haul from BRU by Winter 25/26.

Maybe TUI made the mistake of sticking to Boeing aircraft too long. The Embraers were a nice addition and a sign that they could adapt to the circumstances, such as a short runway at Antwerp. If there are not enough passengers to fill a 787-8, they should have anticipated and looked at Airbus and its A321LR or XLR. It is not yet too late.

The Embraers were available on the market.
Switching to Airbus would mean deliveries in years from now.

They decided to get rid of good & reliable NG's after the covid crisis, now they're surprised they can't get new planes on time and they are in trouble because the leasing rates of their current fleet are increasing significantly.

TUI's management changed completely, airlines don't have much to say anymore, all major decisions are at group level now.
Result; Approx 10 737 less in TUI BE's fleet, no more 787's, creation of Fly4 (which cannot grow because they are unable to get extra aircraft from anywhere), lots of doubtful third party carriers (Bulgaria Air, Fly2sky, ETF Airways, Getjet Airlines, and so on and so on)...

The competition must be very happy of TUI's choices, that's for sure.

I think the same. As Discover and Condor announced already that they will fly to more business cities to feed their own leisure flights, I believe that sooner or later we will see some narrowbody of them at BRU to feed their own long haul in Germany.

But to be honest, it's nothing new. We had it decades ago also. We had flights to the Maledives via Goa and other exotic ones who were flown by foreign airlines. It was all very short like one year max. Also Air Belgium tried and we see how it ended. Only the Caribbean were for a very long time in the BRU portfolio.
Maybe this is simply not the market for Belgium to have full planes several times a week. As we can see, short and midhaul is booming for leisure, long haul rather not.

[crew1990]

Maybe this is simply not the market for Belgium to have full planes several times a week. As we can see, short and midhaul is booming for leisure, long haul rather not.

Only 2 destinations in the Caribbean are part of the Belgian market, Punta Cana and Cancun and indeed there is no room for daily long haul leisure departure. Those 2 destinations work and are always full, however it's not worth it to keep a single long haul aircraft just to operate those 2 destinations. TUI is in my opinion right to get rid of the 787 from a operationnal point of view, even if as an av-geek it sadden me.

If only Punta Cana and Cancun are working there are other solution for TUI than using it's own metal like using a third party: Brussels Airlines BRU-PUJ-CUN-BRU or TUI netherlands with a W pattern flight AMS-CUN-BRU-CUN-AMS and AMS-PUJ-BRU-PUJ-AMS. The second beeing the most realistic as SN as other plan for the A330's

[rwandan-flyer]

Maybe TUI made the mistake of sticking to Boeing aircraft too long. The Embraers were a nice addition and a sign that they could adapt to the circumstances, such as a short runway at Antwerp. If there are not enough passengers to fill a 787-8, they should have anticipated and looked at Airbus and its A321LR or XLR. It is not yet too late.

The Embraers were available on the market.
Switching to Airbus would mean deliveries in years from now.

They decided to get rid of good & reliable NG's after the covid crisis, now they're surprised they can't get new planes on time and they are in trouble because the leasing rates of their current fleet are increasing significantly.

TUI's management changed completely, airlines don't have much to say anymore, all major decisions are at group level now.
Result; Approx 10 737 less in TUI BE's fleet, no more 787's, creation of Fly4 (which cannot grow because they are unable to get extra aircraft from anywhere), lots of doubtful third party carriers (Bulgaria Air, Fly2sky, ETF Airways, Getjet Airlines, and so on and so on)...

The competition must be very happy of TUI's choices, that's for sure.

I think the same. As Discover and Condor announced already that they will fly to more business cities to feed their own leisure flights, I believe that sooner or later we will see some narrowbody of them at BRU to feed their own long haul in Germany.

But to be honest, it's nothing new. We had it decades ago also. We had flights to the Maledives via Goa and other exotic ones who were flown by foreign airlines. It was all very short like one year max. Also Air Belgium tried and we see how it ended. Only the Caribbean were for a very long time in the BRU portfolio.
Maybe this is simply not the market for Belgium to have full planes several times a week. As we can see, short and midhaul is booming for leisure, long haul rather not.

There not many European airlines whiich have a huge presence in Caribbean . Only KLM, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways (most of time they operate from Gatwick not Heathrow) have huge prescence, but it's both leisure and VFR (Visiting friends and relatives) market. Many of these Islands were in Dutch Empire or British Empire.

It's like for Fort de France, La Reunion and Point à Pitre with France. You have seasonal or year around flights from Paris and some big French Cities (Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyons and Marseille). In Winter it's mainly leisure with Cruise and in summer it's mainly VFR (Visiting friends and relatives).

Air France closed its routes to Saint Domingue and Punta Cana, 2 years ago, despite they had good point to point demand many connecting pax from Italy, Germany or Eastern Europe. They have also reduced capacities to Cuba. In Winter, now they use 787-9 instead of B777-300ER.

Corsair from Paris Orly has also closed several routes in the region since 10 years: Sint Maarten, Punta Cana, Puerto Plata, La Romana, Havana, Santiago, Varadero

For Male, Biritsh Airways is the only hub and spoke airline to provide year around service. Air France closed its route in 2023, but has only operated flights to Male during the 2024-2025 Christmas holidays. ITA, Discover, Eldeweiss and Austrian provide seasonal flights. Iberia started to serve Male in 2021, but they have closed route. If you compare to Bangkok, Phuket, Dubai, Cancun which has a biggest demand the presence of European airlines is low at Male.

Competition is very stiff and you have airlines from Middle East which bring huge capacities.

[Lux_avi]

If only Punta Cana and Cancun are working there are other solution for TUI than using it's own metal like using a third party: Brussels Airlines BRU-PUJ-CUN-BRU or TUI netherlands with a W pattern flight AMS-CUN-BRU-CUN-AMS and AMS-PUJ-BRU-PUJ-AMS. The second beeing the most realistic as SN as other plan for the A330's

PUJ-CUN? It's a 3 hour flight
Greatest idea ever to make every single passenger run away from this rotation.

I don't see your point with our W patterns. Why would BRU-CUN be more profitable if it flies back to AMS afterwards iso BRU...?

[brabel]

Tui did that too.
Brussels - Varadero - Cancun - Brussels
And Brussels - Punta Cana - Curacao - Brussels
And Montego Bay was also in a rotation probably

[crew1990]

If only Punta Cana and Cancun are working there are other solution for TUI than using it's own metal like using a third party: Brussels Airlines BRU-PUJ-CUN-BRU or TUI netherlands with a W pattern flight AMS-CUN-BRU-CUN-AMS and AMS-PUJ-BRU-PUJ-AMS. The second beeing the most realistic as SN as other plan for the A330's

PUJ-CUN? It's a 3 hour flight
Greatest idea ever to make every single passenger run away from this rotation.

I don't see your point with our W patterns. Why would BRU-CUN be more profitable if it flies back to AMS afterwards iso BRU...?

Concerning the PUJ-CUN rotation, it is nothing exotical, many leiserure airlines do it, Jetairfly among them. Having twice weekly PUJ-CUN iso of one weekly PUJ and one weekly CUN make that there is no need for 2 crew station (double cost for accomodation,; transportation, etc) and having a full crew stuck 8 days outstations. With a triangular rotation, there is only one crew station and the crew is gone 4 of 5 days maximum. This is a common practise even with a 3h flight in between, it would bother business passenger, but the impact on leisure passenger is much lighter.

Concerning the W pattern, the point is to serve the Belgian market as well without having the need for TUI Belgium to have a own 787 based in Brussels. Having one single aircraft of a certain type for an airline is really not a good idea for operational reason (AOG, aircraft in maintenance or at the paintshop). This also economically not interesting as there is no economy of scale on training, certification etc

Having a W pattern would make that Belgium could still have a direct flight with those 2 main destinations without having the fantasy to open other unsuccessfull destination that we saw during all the long haul era of TUI (Liberia, Male, Colombo, Curaçao, Orlando,...) those destination simply does not work from BRU but TUI always had to try somemething to fill the shedule of the dreamliner. The W pattern is a way to serve only what the Belgian leisure market need wich is basically only 2 weekly long haul departure.

[Lux_avi]

If only Punta Cana and Cancun are working there are other solution for TUI than using it's own metal like using a third party: Brussels Airlines BRU-PUJ-CUN-BRU or TUI netherlands with a W pattern flight AMS-CUN-BRU-CUN-AMS and AMS-PUJ-BRU-PUJ-AMS. The second beeing the most realistic as SN as other plan for the A330's

PUJ-CUN? It's a 3 hour flight
Greatest idea ever to make every single passenger run away from this rotation.

I don't see your point with our W patterns. Why would BRU-CUN be more profitable if it flies back to AMS afterwards iso BRU...?

Concerning the PUJ-CUN rotation, it is nothing exotical, many leiserure airlines do it, Jetairfly among them. Having twice weekly PUJ-CUN iso of one weekly PUJ and one weekly CUN make that there is no need for 2 crew station (double cost for accomodation,; transportation, etc) and having a full crew stuck 8 days outstations. With a triangular rotation, there is only one crew station and the crew is gone 4 of 5 days maximum. This is a common practise even with a 3h flight in between, it would bother business passenger, but the impact on leisure passenger is much lighter.

Concerning the W pattern, the point is to serve the Belgian market as well without having the need for TUI Belgium to have a own 787 based in Brussels. Having one single aircraft of a certain type for an airline is really not a good idea for operational reason (AOG, aircraft in maintenance or at the paintshop). This also economically not interesting as there is no economy of scale on training, certification etc

Having a W pattern would make that Belgium could still have a direct flight with those 2 main destinations without having the fantasy to open other unsuccessfull destination that we saw during all the long haul era of TUI (Liberia, Male, Colombo, Curaçao, Orlando,...) those destination simply does not work from BRU but TUI always had to try somemething to fill the shedule of the dreamliner. The W pattern is a way to serve only what the Belgian leisure market need wich is basically only 2 weekly long haul departure.

Flight Crew were already operating back rotations like BRU-CUN - min rest - CUN-AMS taxi back to BRU.
Pretty much all rotations were short.

I am also pretty sure TUI considered this kind of planning, but crew costs are far from being the issue on that market.
The leasing rates of the 787's will increase significantly, that's the main reason why OO-JDL will be moved to a company where long haul performs better (the UK, probably...). W rotations through AMS would create even more mess in case of AOG's (the EU261 rules are also part of the reasons why long haul is not profitable for them, 3 hours delay and you've to pay 500-600€ to every single pax... ridiculous).

And of course leisure passengers would care about a 3 hour flight between PUJ & CUN. TUI had no other choice than adapting its schedule when Air Belgium started direct flights to PUJ. They were losing tons of customers because of their longer flights via Montego Bay. You can go to CUN through many other airlines with connecting flights from BRU, it's still more comfortable than flying BRU-PUJ-CUN.

They've always said keeping only 1 long haul aircraft in BRU made no sense. Half a 787 would make even less sense. Long haul was a prestige project for the brand image, and to keep competition away from them. The bloodbath is now too important to continue this way.

[JOVAN2]

I flew 9 times to CUN with TUI fly in the last few years. Always the flights were full.
But TUI wants to sell packages including hotel etc.
Nowadays people organize their own trips and younger people want to see places. Laying on (sunny) beach does need a long trip to CUN or other exotic places. You can go to Spain, Turkey etc.
All travel organizations a la TUI Group will suffer.
People who can afford long distance travel want an almost personalized schedule.

Still the market is there to fly to Mexico from BRU.
But as a "real" airline, with reliable planes.
The BRU catchment area is big (20mio).
And manu Mexicans can afford to travel.

[Atlantis]

I flew 9 times to CUN with TUI fly in the last few years. Always the flights were full.
But TUI wants to sell packages including hotel etc.
Nowadays people organize their own trips and younger people want to see places. Laying on (sunny) beach does need a long trip to CUN or other exotic places. You can go to Spain, Turkey etc.
All travel organizations a la TUI Group will suffer.
People who can afford long distance travel want an almost personalized schedule.

Still the market is there to fly to Mexico from BRU.
But as a "real" airline, with reliable planes.
The BRU catchment area is big (20mio).
And manu Mexicans can afford to travel.

Flights can be full indeed but it doesn't mean that the airline is earning on it. If you see how sky low from time to time the prices are/were, you can question yourself how they do this.
But then, as the kerosine is up or an airport is asking higher fees like Curaçao did, then we see very fast that the airline cannot fly anymore to that destination like Air Belgium.
The margins are very thin.

Like it was said before, there are only like 2 or 3 destinations who works ex-BRU, but it has to be an established company who is flying on it.
Or maybe seasonal? Or maybe even SN who can do it seasonal when they stop their seasonal flights to Washington. But this all, again, when you have enough planes so that also during lower Winter season you can do the yearly maintenance.

But I believe that rather fast this gap will be filled somehow.

[VEX802]

Brussels – Tenerife South: Final flight on 2 November 2025

[Miqvell]

Brussels – Tenerife South: Final flight on 2 November 2025

I don't believe it, still too early for winter schedule.

[Lux_avi]

Brussels – Tenerife South: Final flight on 2 November 2025

Funny one

[brabel]

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/250210-tbnw25lh
Well, it is on autoroutes. But I guess it's a mistake as it's abt the 789.

[Lux_avi]

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/250210-tbnw25lh
Well, it is on autoroutes. But I guess it's a mistake as it's abt the 789.

The 788*
But yes, most likely that means the last 788 flight for TUI BE will be TFS, but that will probably change 200x times by then.
Ending BRU-TFS would mean bankruptcy...

[Atlantis]

TUI is not only cutting routes in Belgium. Also from various UK cities they will cut 12 routes. Both long haul and short/ mid haul flights.