Are Tui about to go bust?

[Afterfire]

I booked a holiday for 2023 this weekend. It’s our first “proper” holiday as a family and a huge amount of money to us. When I first booked it I was very excited and I did the usual things of checking trip advisor and google for reviews of the resort and overwhelmingly the reviews were really positive so went ahead and booked it all.

Since then I’ve joined a few Facebook groups related to Tui and the hotel itself (also Tui) and I’m starting to panic a bit because there are so many complaints - people being left stranded at airports for hours (literally 10 plus hours) without any communication, whole holidays being cancelled at the last minute etc etc. The actual Tui Facebook page itself it’s flooded with complaints and people being unable to contact anyone.

I’ve only paid the deposit so far and given the holiday isn’t till 2023 I’ve got time to work out what to do.

Several of the comments on Facebook suggest Tui is £600m in debt and owned by a Russian whose funds have been severed by the war sanctions…. No idea if that’s true or not?!

Do people still trust Tui? Are they as bad as they seem now? Would I be better to cancel or is this just a case of things being all a bit of a shit show after covid and it will get back to normal by the time we go do you think?

The best analysis is SimplywallSt.com

@MrsPnut
Yes a lot of the debt is from the German Government but the company has a huge rights issue underway (see the details from above commentary) and it’s been commented on just about everywhere from The Times to Bloomberg etc. Basically they are issuing shares at a discount to attract capital to repay the debts as well as profits now holidays are being booked again. However the debt is massive. So for most people the jury is still out for the future. Strong profits for several years would settle nerves I think.

Having only really booked holidays separately for many years, post covid I've started booking package holidays as have most people I know at the moment, and it seems to be mostly TUI packages they're going for.

Have done a couple of them with TUI in the last year and have had no faults once abroad, at the hotels, etc.

Our issue with the last holiday was Manchester airport. Took 2 hours to check in at the TUI counters, and we were then stuck in passport control for ages (the electronic gates kept failing), and then bag check queues was huge. Had to ask to be fast tracked through in the end as out flight time was only 30 minutes to go - luckily they did this and we got to the gate with 10 minutes or so to spare. But I think most if those issues were airport rather than travel company mainly - though check in could have been travel company issue and reduced staffing.

But my experience is that people are still using TUI a lot - hence the huge queue to check in and no last minute breaks available in some areas.

I hope not we are flying with them on Wednesday but I went on holiday with Thomas Cook just before they went bust and the signs are all there for Tui large discounts , 0 deposit deals which happened before Thomas Cook went bust. I hope not I love a package holiday you can get some good deals. Sadly Tui never picked up the route to cayo coco and holguin in Cuba they only do varadero so we haven't been able to go back to those gorgeous bits of Cuba.

I used to use tui regularly when we have out euro holiday, the way in which they handled refunds etc during covid I switched to jet2.

Tui had zero sympathy for its customers, so I have zero for them and would not use them again.

We had a holiday yesterday cancelled 10 hours after scheduled take off - they left the POLICE to tell us as all tui staff had gone and frankly no one else was interested.

Entire holiday cancelled - well I assume as it's 24 hours later and no contact from them at all.

1am and the 4 airplanes of people were stood outside the airport trying to work out what to do with not a word from tui.

And today it's seems worse as people are stuck abroad for 48 hrs unable to get home.

It's the lack of communication that is so atrocious.

Oh gosh, just seem the story. We are flying home on Tuesday, I hope that's not disrupted. I'm off work for a few more days after our return though. So I guess if it did happen we could manage but still would like to be home.

OP - it is stuff on the internet with titles like this that can contribute to the very thing you are worried about.

EasyJet is cancelling left right and centre too so it isn't a problem specific to Tui

I’m flying today with Tui
my flight has been delayed by 1hr
another flight to Pathos has been cancelled completely and the people have been at the airport since 10am
probably another 10-15 flights have all been delayed as well

Oh and the delayed and cancelled flights are all Tui & a few easy jet flights

Easy jet have already said they are cancelling at least 200 flights this week.

Anecdote alert

I regularly walk past a tui travel agent and there always seem to be customers in there, at the weekend they sometimes even have a queue so unless everyone is in there trying to get refunds they don't seem to be short of customers.

3 weeks ago my brother and SIL arrived at the airport in Majorca at 11pm to discover that the TUI rep had no record of their hotel booking or transfer for the first week of their 2 centre holiday. They had to find themselves another hotel and transport and pay for it.
Getting nowhere at the moment to resolve it since they have been back.

I do understand that but if I don’t post I’ll never know what the general consensus is outside of the realms of facebook and suchlike, a lot of which are filled with people who seem to complain for a living…!

The replies here have been more balanced and that’s given me hope!

When monarch went bump we were abroad the British government got us home

The views of randoms isnt going to change what happens to tui though

We have no more clue than an angry people on Facebook group and no more or less likelihood of being right unless the board and financiers of the business happen to be mumsnetters and willing to spill the tea 😜

No, no, no.

most travel insurance does not cover operator insolvency (though some do)

TUI is ATOL protected and that’s where your rights lie in tbe event of their insolvency

We were due to fly with this at 4.50 yesterday from Manchester to Antalya, they moved it to 6pm, then 8pm, we're called to the gate. They they said they'd over booked and we needed 7 people to offer to not fly. 5 came forward. The flight was then cancelled because the staff had worked too many hours at 10pm. They said they would find taxis and hotels for us.
1.30am and we still had no taxi or hotel my kids were sleeping on the floor.
2am and they cancelled the whole holiday via text.
Communication absolutely shocking. We still haven't heard from tui in person as such.

Ditto BA recently (but worse - staff absences coupled with IT failure). And EasyJet. It’s not a TUI specific problem

Have you put the deposit on a credit card? Much easier to claim anything back if you've paid for even some of it that way.

It happens we got stuck for 24hrs with Thomas cook and have had a 5hour delay with BA. Wet leasing doesn't seem to be a thing anymore the tour operators just seem to pick up 24hr delays! We are looking at virgin at the moment as it's his toy so doubt he would let it go bust

Still waiting 3Hr delay now
but that’s £350 compensation I will claim for 😂

Certainly hope not, I've got a lot of cabin crew friends who work for them.

That is dreadful. I’m so sorry for you all.

Update - my tui flight has been cancelled ffs
been at the airport since 1pm
luckily I only live 20 mins from the airport