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Founded | 1962 as Britannia Airways |
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Commenced operations |
1 November 2008 |
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AOC # | 294 | ||||||
Operating bases |
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Alliance | TUI Airlines | ||||||
Fleet size | 62 | ||||||
Destinations | 96 | ||||||
Company slogan | Discover Your Smile | ||||||
Parent company | TUI Group | ||||||
Headquarters |
Registered office: Crawley Head office: Luton |
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Key people | John Murphy (Managing Director) | ||||||
Employees | approx. 18,000 | ||||||
Website | thomson.co.uk |
1 November 2008
as Thomson Airways
2 October 2017
as TUI Airways
TUI Airways Limited, often referred to as TUI (formerly Thomson Airways), is the world's largest charter airline, offering scheduled and charter flights from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland to destinations in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. The airline carried 10.6 million passengers in 2015, making it the third-largest UK airline by total passengers, after EasyJet and British Airways.
The registered office is at the TUI Travel House in Crawley, West Sussex but its head office is located in Wigmore House in Luton, Bedfordshire. TUI Airways Limited holds a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Type A Operating Licence permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.
The airline was formed following the merger of the travel division of TUI AG and First Choice Holidays plc in September 2007 to form TUI Travel. The two companies' respective airlines, Thomsonfly and First Choice Airways, were merged under the former's Air Operator's Certificate in May 2008, and were rebranded as Thomson Airways on 1 November 2008. TUI Travel merged with TUI AG to form TUI Group in December 2014.
TUI Airways officially changed its legal name from Thomson Airways to TUI Airways on 2 October 2017. This was in line with sister companies TUI fly Belgium, TUI fly Deutschland, TUI fly Netherlands and TUI fly Nordic. All airlines in the group, excluding Corsair International, were rebranded as TUI. The majority of TUI Airways fleet has already been repainted with the 'TUI' branding. Thomson Holidays now refers to the airline as "TUI Airways".