Tui cuts summer capacity to 75% from 80% of 2019 levels

Travel company Tui said on Thursday that it has trimmed its capacity for the peak summer travel months to 75% of 2019 levels from 80%.

Ahead of its annual general meeting, Tui - which has been hit hard by the Covid-related restrictions - said group-wide bookings for summer including re-bookings and voucher redemptions, remain unchanged at an "encouraging" level of 2.8m guests, which is 60% below the comparable level for last summer.

"The flexible business model allows for demand-driven capacity management and for the peak summer travel season we are aiming for good load factors and improved margins again," it said.

"The group remains flexible to increase capacity again in the short term as further progress is made on pandemic response and vaccination campaigns, travel restrictions are lifted and customer demand increases."

Tui said it continues to see strong pent-up demand and that the desire for travel is "evident" in the UK, with bookings for summer 2022 now around 120% higher than summer 2021. In particular, bookings for May 2022 are seeing an increase of more than 150% on the year.

Last month, the holiday company said it had slumped to a €699m loss in the first-quarter due to the pandemic.