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?

Further update holiday cancelled after being at the airport for 9 fucking hours
TUI are cunts

I am really sorry. Mine was cancelled 24hours before I flew and I thought that was shit, but you win.

☹️☹️☹️❤️

My friend was advised to book her holiday via a TUI branch rather than online. She can make payments over the phone or go in store. She can call and speak to an advisor within five mins rather than ringing their general number and be kept waiting in a queue for up to an hour.

Son and family last Saturday were due to fly back from Cape Verde to Birmingham. Flight cancelled so they stayed at resort for another day, next day Manchester flight cancelled so those people stayed another night. Meanwhile the flight from Manchester was cancelled with all holidays lost completely.

Sons flight to Birmingham left five hours late the crew had come in to work on rest days to get them home. They're getting 2k compensation. Frankly tui can't keep paying for extra days at resorts and adhere to EU compensation. So yes it is worrying

@justasking111
At least they stayed in their hotel. What if the rooms had other holidaymakers arriving?

These companies have found it difficult to scale back up to higher customer numbers. They have gone from virtually no business to trying to pretend it’s business as usual. It would be interesting to know what percentage of flights are affected. Are 90% getting away or far less?

With the compensation they have to pay out on this flight and the flight to come back that’s around 100k just in compensation
plus the refund of the holidays - ours was 4200 for three of us for a week
plus they cancelled 2 other flights / holidays today from our airport

TUI has made around £1.5 billion losses in 20/21/22. I’m sure your figures will add to their problems if these issues are ongoing. They also make a mockery of strong summer sales if compensation outweighs profit. They have a share issue which is trying to raise money to pay off some of the loans which were taken to bail them out.

Very few travel companies didn’t make a loss during Covid. Because people didn’t travel and they still had huge costs, hence the losses, as the period effectively covers pandemic and recovery.

travel bookings have surged hugely so they will return to profit. The compensation for the cancelled holiday (which is appalling but not the norm) won’t change that.

Read on FB this morning about a flight that was boarding 4 hours late and as they got to the boarding gate they received texts to say it was cancelled altogether.

@itsgettingweird I have read the same also on FB. I think it's horrendous cancelling people just before boarding the plane. Surely the airlines can give more notice that a couple of hours. I'm flying in less than 2 weeks!

@Ramsbottom
Surge in bookings does not equal profits. The shares are being sold at a discount to attract buyers to raise money to service debts. It’s absolutely not expecting to repay loans from sales this summer. As I said earlier,: read the financial press.

I’ve checked the various TUI pages and groups this morning and they are flooded with similar stories. Trust pilot also reflects these. However, it does seem to be happening across the board with Jet2 and EasyJet as well so I’m realising it’s not just Tui. So clearly it’s widespread.

Notice given depends on what caused the cancellation….sometimes lots of notice isn’t possible.

For example a company might genuinely be planning to operate an evening departure and so in the AM it’s still on the schedule to go as planned.

However during the earlier part of the day the crew and/or aircraft that are planned to operate that late sector may get caught up in in delays on earlier flights.

By the time that last sector comes around the crew may well not have the duty hours to legally operate the flight…even using all the legit mechanisms available to extend their day they end up with the dreaded “out of hours”. Result flight gets cancelled at the last minute, sometimes possibly even after the flight has boarded…

If there’s a significant number of those events it can then cascade through to the next day with consequences with, for example the next mornings departures being cancelled rescheduled at short notice.

FWIW most airlines don’t have many if any “spare” crews hanging around and these days most crews are routinely rostered close to the legal limits anyway so they don’t have much flex. Chuck in widespread disruption across a whole airline and it can get more and more difficult to get the operation back on the rails.

(BTW the above is not excusing any poor attempts at customer service or service recovery, just trying to point out some of the reality).

I think we were probably on the same flight, at Manchester? Horrendous isn't it.

I have an evening flight booked next Monday at Birmingham and I’ve checked the TUI flight tracker and it looks like evening flights are affected more?

i cannot even be arsed to pack our suitcases 😂 🤦‍♀️Wish I could un-book!

@Sunquench

I’ve checked the TUI flight tracker and it looks like evening flights are affected more?

Can't speak for TUI specifically but general point, back end of a short haul evening the aircraft and/or crews will have picked up all the delays throughout the day, x minutes late first turnround, y minutes late on the second, etc, etc. It can all build up and as a result the later flights may well tend to run late....happens at many airlines.

Depending on how crew start times are rostered if the delays are big enough then that's when you might see the highest percentage of crews going "out of hours" and flights being cancelled.

Delays are widespread due to staffing issues in airport services such as baggage loading and services to get an aircraft off the ground. Plus delayed aircraft arrivals which have a knock in effect. The travel industry is always rubbish at comms though. But again, that takes staff.

I flew for work last week and three out of four flights were delayed - reasons were (a) lack of air bridge for incoming flight, (b) lack of cleaners for incoming flight and (c) congestion. Then on final arrival we all waited 90 minutes for our bags because two flights landed at once (Newcastle, so not a big airport) because of our delay, the baggage handlers couldn't cope, and then the belt broke. So no one big thing but the whole experience was a bit fraught and miserable, and these were just domestic flights.

I recently went on a solo TUI holiday to Tenerife and the flights and hotel were fantastic but I did notice serious cutbacks in available food and supplies on board, delays getting on the plane back due to lack of staff, no TUI rep actually available at my hotel but they said there would be (Villa Mandi Golf resort) and the coach was over 40 mins late picking us up and we rushed for the flight! Also they said there were transfers available to the beach and Siam Park but they never arrived.

I went to check if my booking was there for 2023 ten mins ago on my log in for tui site it has mysteriously vanished!
I am concerned about cancelling as been told they will charge me to do this instead. But it’s not looking good

I’ve just looked at the app and my 2023 booking is still there. It’ll all come out in the wash I suppose. 🤷‍♀️

We've had a few days where customers of various organisations spending hundreds or thousands of pounds with them have been treated appalingly.

Easyjet customers being left on planes for hours, not knowing whether they will take off, or flights being cancelled at short notice.

TUI being more useless than a chocolate teapot - the whole point of booking a package is that if elements are cancelled, they are supposed to look after you and make alternative arrangements.

French police kettling football fans like criminals and absolutely appalling lack of organisation of a major sporting event in Paris.

I think Easyjet, TUI, Parisian authorities and UEFA have got a lot of work and grovelling to do to give people the confidence to come and spend serious money with them again.

They're ATOL protected, so you'll get the money back.

I had to do it a couple of years ago when Thomas Cook went pop.

You need receipts obviously, of course, but it was a doddle.

My firmed was due to fly to Spain this morning at 6am, had a test last night at 6pm that the whole holiday was cancelled. Flying from Manchester and blamed 'administrative difficulties'.
I also know someone who received a text last night that their flight home form Alicante to Manchester this morning is cancelled.
Both TUI.