The demand for trips in summer is high. Even problems with handling at airports do not reduce the desire to travel, as industry leader Tui reports.

The tourism group Tui gives travelers hope for a relaxed summer holiday despite the chaos at airports.

“Despite all the challenges due to staff shortages in the industry, the holidays will go smoothly for the vast majority,” said the German boss of the travel group, Stefan Baumert, on Monday evening in Berlin.

Unlike some airlines such as Lufthansa, the group’s own airline Tuifly does not want to cancel any flights. The flight schedule of the company’s own Tuifly machines will remain in place, as will plans for additional reserve aircraft at peak times. Baumert recommended that it is often worth changing the airport to start your holiday from a federal state in which holidays have not yet started.

Demand increases significantly

According to the manager, the demand for summer travel has increased significantly in recent weeks and is “consistently above the level of 2019”. “We are catching up rapidly and are more than confident that we will see summer business this year that will come close to 2019,” Baumert confirmed earlier expectations. Bookings for the months of September and October have also been rising sharply for a few days.

Tui cannot tell that people are holding back on bookings because of problems with handling at airports. There is also no evidence that customers with the so-called flex tariffs are increasingly using the option to rebook or cancel free of charge up to 15 days before departure. “They all want to go on vacation,” said Baumert. “But we are seeing record numbers of calls to our customer hotlines.”

According to him, the general price increases are not yet fully reflected in Tui package travel offers, because the contracts with hotels and airlines for the summer were already signed. “Currently, many tour operators are cheaper than individual components with airlines or hotels, because there are still package tours in the systems whose prices were negotiated last year,” explained the manager.

expected price increases

“However, if these quotas are soon exhausted, the current daily exchange rate will be used, and increased fuel and food prices can have a significant impact.” Last minute travel would not be as cheap as it was before the pandemic. “Higher prices of up to 10 percent in this segment will not be uncommon,” said Baumert.

After more than two years of the corona pandemic, classic travel destinations are particularly in demand, especially around the Mediterranean, especially Turkey. Antalya has therefore moved to second place behind Mallorca. Greece will also continue to be in strong demand. “Crete is heading for a record season,” reported Baumert. Portugal, Cyprus and Egypt are also currently making strong gains. When it comes to car trips, the main focus is on the German Baltic Sea coast and the northern Italian lakes.

Baumert hopes that things will run smoothly again at the airports in late summer and the autumn holidays. The German airports and their ground service providers want to hire thousands of foreign workers directly. The workers are to come from Turkey and some Balkan countries, among others, for a limited period of up to three months. Talks are currently underway within the federal government to clarify the prerequisites for this.