Dear valued partner,

Summer is officially here, TUI’s summer operations across the world are ramping up and it’s fantastic to see our mutual customers enjoying their holidays once more. To keep our partners up to date with all the latest news at TUI and inform you about our plans for this summer and beyond, we have a new-look partner update. Each issue will include an update from me on a key topic and will feature a series of news stories that we think will be of interest.

Key news this month is Sebastian Ebel will be TUI’s new CEO as Fritz Joussen hands over his position at the end of September.  

As you’re aware in recent weeks the whole of the travel industry, has been affected by delays and cancellations.   So, I wanted to explain the situation and reassure you on all the steps we are putting in place to address the issues that caused the delays and cancellations.

New CEO

Sebastian Ebel is to become CEO of TUI at the end of the financial year, when Fritz Joussen will hand over.

Sebastian is a member of the Executive Board and is CFO at TUI. He’s an experienced tourism manager and was responsible for the strategic growth areas of hotels, cruises and activities for many years and successfully developed them into the Group's most profitable segments. Many of our partners will know Sebastian.  Hotel Purchasing reported into Sebastian for a number of years, before he took on his CFO role. This Spring Sebastian also joined many of the hotel partner events, we hosted across different destinations.  

TUI has overcome the COVID crisis, that once threatened our viability and we’re entering the next phase. Sebastian is an excellent choice to lead the business. He’s extremely entrepreneurial and has clear strategic and operational ambitions for TUI's development. Sebastian will focus on product, service and profitable growth as well as strengthening the balance sheet. 

New CFO 

Mathias Kiep will succeed Sebastian Ebel as Chief Financial Officer. Mathias Kiep was an important part of TUI's crisis team, during the pandemic. He was closely involved in TUI’s stabilisation and the important steps towards debt reduction and refinancing. As Chief Financial Officer of TUI Deutschland, he also knows our business operations very well.

TUI's Supervisory Board confirmed the Presiding Committee's proposals this week. Sebastian Ebel and Mathias Kiep are appointed for three year period, effective from 1 October 2022.

David Burling's appointment extended 

In addition, the Supervisory Board has extended the appointment of David Burling, Executive Board member responsible for Markets & Airlines, until 31 May 2026. This is two years ahead of schedule. David will continue to be responsible for the Group's tour operators and TUI's airlines. I know many of our partners have worked with David for many years and will be pleased that with his top management and tourism experience is on board to support TUI in its recovery.

The Supervisory Board regret Fritz Joussen's decision and we’ve seen an outpouring of well wishes and thanks for Fritz from across TUI and the industry. During his ten years as CEO, Fritz focused on TUI’s core business, creating a strong global brand, expanding profitable hotels, cruises and activities segments as well as digitalising the Group, so the company was on course for growth until the pandemic. Fritz then safely led TUI through the pandemic crisis, laying the foundation for the Group to deliver profitable growth again. As a result, TUI is now more global, efficient and digital than ever before.  

I hope you’ll join me in wishing Fritz all the best and thanking him for his commitment and contribution to TUI.

Airline Disruption

Our customers work hard for their holidays and we do everything in our power to deliver a fantastic holiday.  TUI’s holidays rely on a complex eco-system of services, including pilots, cabin crew, as well as operational partners for things such as check in, baggage and catering. We also work with air traffic control and airport security teams. Our planes cannot take off, when the eco-system isn’t working as it should.

At the end of May our eco-system across some markets experienced capacity issues that impacted some customers – who were subjected to delays and in very rare cases cancellations. A small number of customers had a poor experience with us – which we’ve apologised for. We’ve learnt from this and are working closely with our partners to address the issues that caused this disruption.  

For those customers impacted, we are compensating customers for delays. On the rare occasion we had to cancel a holiday, customers were fully refunded.  We also have strong customer incentives in place for customers to re-book with us again.

We want to thank all our partners who have supported customers in resort when flights have been delayed and for their patience when a very small number of holidays were cancelled.

Our colleagues across the world have also been going the extra mile to help support our customers across airports.  Our colleagues across other areas of the business have stepped in to support our customers at airports. Please check out the story below with some examples of how our colleagues have been going above and beyond to help our customers through the airport disruption.   

The situation is ongoing as key airports such as Schiphol in the Netherlands and London Gatwick in the UK have announced capacity cuts. Our teams are working to reroute flights to other airports to minimise the impact on our programmes and advise customers of changes. To date, we have not cancelled any flights from these airports. We will need to work together as we have done throughout the pandemic to support the airline industry in its recovery.  

Our shared commitment to sustainability

TUI is working intensively on its new Sustainability Agenda. Over the past few months important preliminary work has already happened and we will soon share more news on how we want to work together on the sustainable transformation of our industry.

Hotel partners can demonstrate their commitment to sustainability by getting their hotel sustainably certified by an independent body such as Travelife, as it proves you officially meet global sustainability standards. As well as reassuring customers, certification also helps improve and reduce costs. Certified hotels are also offered extra sales and marketing support. You can find out more by clicking here.

We have a selection of news stories below to keep you up to date on all the news at TUI. It includes TUI’s Q2 results, Partner Get Togethers, the TUI Global Hotel Awards and TUI’s name-giving events – where it’s newest aircraft are being named after tourist destinations to celebrate its partnerships within that region.  

I hope you like the new-look newsletter and I look forward to seeing lots more partners over the coming weeks and months on the many resort trips I have planned.

Kind regards,

Helen Caron