TUI strengthens strategic growth in individual travel: Cooperation with Ryanair expands offering and gives travellers more choice, destinations and flexibility
- TUI customers will have access to even more flights in future when putting together their trips, especially in the UK
- Over one million additional flights per year: Ryanair's full range of flights can be booked directly with TUI
- New offering allows building blocks for package tours and individual trips, such as weekend breaks
- Flights can be booked both in travel agencies and online
TUI is accelerating its transformation into a global provider of travel and experiences. The additional offering will strengthen the strategic initiative for growth in dynamic packaging. In future, TUI customers will be able to choose from an even wider range of flights when booking their trip. All Ryanair flights will soon be bookable directly with TUI and can be combined with the travel company’s full offering.
The flights complement the already extensive and growing range of TUI's own flights and existing connections with partner airlines. There is new potential, especially for destinations that are not yet seamlessly connected. This means that TUI will provide individual travellers an even more attractive options for city breaks and short trips in the future. Furthermore, the additional flights can also be integrated into package tours – when booking at travel agencies and online. With this cooperation, TUI is significantly expanding the variety and frequency of its flight offerings, particularly in the UK. Travellers will benefit from even more destinations and greater flexibility, with millions of new combination options.
The partnership with Ryanair will be particularly beneficial for the First Choice brand, which re-launched in the UK last September. The additional volume and flexibility of flights will make it significantly more attractive to the new younger generation of travellers. The First Choice proposition offers a range of trips from 5-star resorts, hotels to hostels, premium and low-cost airlines, as well as interesting and unique experiences.
"The new agreement follows the Group's strategy of greater digitalisation of the business segments. In the past financial year, the number of dynamically packaged trips at TUI already grew to over 2.5 million. The cooperation with Ryanair will now further expand the range of dynamically packaged TUI holidays and at the same time achieve a further milestone in digitalization. In addition, the cooperation also contributes to our growth strategy – the aim is to achieve additional growth through more products and new guests," said Peter Krüger, Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Executive Officer Holiday Experiences, TUI Group.
"We are consistently implementing our transformation into a year-round provider of travel and experiences. More hotels, more flight connections, more excursions and activities while traveling and at home – we are creating even more choice for our guests. The strategy for our tour operators is clear: we want to continue to grow profitably – with our own exclusive brands and products as well as with an even broader and more individualised offering. The agreement we have now reached will create more travel options for our guests than ever before. In the UK in particular, our guests will be able to choose from an even wider range of flights in future – and in addition to a strong program with TUI Airline's own flights," said David Schelp, CEO Markets & Airlines, TUI Group.
“We are pleased to announce this partnership with TUI, which will enable TUI customers to now book Ryanair flights, seats, and bags as part of their holiday package with the guarantee that they will have full price transparency of Ryanair products, and that they will receive any information regarding their flight directly from Ryanair as well as having direct access to their booking through their myRyanair account. This deal separates TUI from the OTA Pirates who continue to dupe and scam consumers by unlawfully screenscraping Ryanair’s website and mis-selling our flights with egregious hidden mark-ups and overcharges,“ said Dara Brady, Director Marketing & Digital at Ryanair.
The option of booking Ryanair flights as part of TUI holidays will be gradually introduced in the coming weeks and will cover all routes relevant to tourism. The flights can be combined with TUI's hotel offers both in travel agencies and online.
