TUI Group announces rebranding of airline operations

TUI Group announced (13-May-2015) plans to rebrand its existing five airline brands under one airline banner, to be titled 'TUI'. ArkeFly, Jetairfly, Thomson Airways, TUIfly and TUIfly Nordic will maintain the separate air operator's certificates (AOCs), but will operate under "one central organisation" with "one engineering & maintenance function." The new model is designed to ensure:

• Full interoperability among fleet and crew;
• One "IT landscape" serving all five AOCs;
• Fully joint long-haul planning to optimise utilisation;
• A common fleet deployment and capacity planning process;
• One procurement organisation, leveraging scale on all contracts;
• Common "supply chain & process".

Each carrier will remain responsible for its own crew rostering and flight planning arrangements. TUI Group stated: "A strong one-brand policy will make it considerably easier to use the aircraft of the European fleet and the crews across the individual countries, as demand requires it. The resulting increase in the effectiveness of TUI airlines is to enable TUI to deliver operational efficiency improvements worth 50 million euros per annum by 2018." [more - original PR] [more - original PR - II]