TUI cruise ship "Mein Schiff 2" in Hamburg: Missing bookings and cancellations
Photo: Daniel Bockwoldt / dpaThe travel restrictions in the corona pandemic hit the world's largest tourism group TUI hard. Because the company had to cancel almost all vacation trips in the third fiscal quarter from April to June, the company said it lost 1.45 billion euros. A year earlier, TUI had made a profit of almost 23 million euros.
Sales fell by 98.5 percent to 72 million euros between April and June, so that the money was insufficient to cover operating costs. Despite cost reductions, the loss in the first nine months of the financial year ending at the end of September already totaled 2.3 billion euros.
The federal government announced this week that it would increase state aid for TUI by a further 1.2 billion euros from 1.8 billion euros due to the still largely idle tourism business. A loan from the KfW development bank granted in April is to be increased by a further 1.05 billion euros. In addition, 150 million euros are to go to TUI through a convertible bond signed by the Federal Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF). Such bonds can be exchanged for shares by the owner under certain conditions. The federal government could join in as a co-owner with up to nine percent.
TUI boss does not expect "normal business" again until 2022
CEO Fritz Joussen hopes to be able to contain the losses in the current summer quarter by the end of September. To do this, the group needs as many vacationers as possible. Since the resumption of travel, 1.7 million new bookings have been received, it said. The bookings for summer 2021 are also very promising. However, the management did not dare to make a new forecast.
Joussen recently said in an interview that he did not expect "normal business" to return until 2022. Because of the payments to customers for canceled trips, TUI initially burned around 550 to 650 million euros per month during the crisis.
At the beginning of April, a bank consortium had already approved a first large loan secured by the state development bank KfW to cushion the consequences of the pandemic. The TUI Group has also already announced that it will cut up to 8,000 jobs - mainly abroad. In addition, the fleet of your airline TUIfly is to be reduced by more than half. According to reports, 900 full-time positions could be eliminated and several locations closed.
Icon: The mirrorapr / Reuters / dpa
