The second year of the corona pandemic brought about the second billion-dollar loss in a row for the travel company Tui, which is supported by state aid. In the 2020/2021 financial year until the end of September, the bottom line was a deficit of almost 2.5 billion euros, as the company announced in Hanover on Wednesday. The minus was about a fifth lower than a year earlier.
In the final quarter from July to September, the seasonally strongest, the UK’s travel restrictions for 60 countries in particular caused an operating loss for Tui. With the exception of Scandinavia, business on the European continent was profitable. Overall, the world’s largest tour operator makes almost 100 million euros operating loss, although it almost tripled its quarterly sales to 3.4 billion euros. The offer was still only half as large as before the Corona crisis.
Despite the modest numbers and the current uncertainty about the new Coronavirus variant Omikron, Tui boss Fritz Joussen is trying to spread optimism. The travel company is counting on a strong business recovery in the summer of 2022. “The operational business is back,” said Joussen on Wednesday. After 60 to 80 percent of the pre-crisis capacity in winter, he predicted 90 percent for Easter. “For the summer of 2022 and the main travel season, we expect the booking level to return to roughly the same level as before Corona 2019.”
The manager trusts that the vaccinations will further contain the pandemic, even if Omikron is currently slowing down bookings. But the effect is not particularly great. There are only a few cancellations or changes to later dates. The Tui boss is also optimistic about the price trend: customers booked longer vacations and higher-quality hotels – around five stars instead of four. Nevertheless, the group does not dare to give a financial outlook for the 2022 financial year, which has been running since October.
The corona pandemic with global travel restrictions hit the aviation and tourism industries particularly hard. That is why both Tui and Lufthansa were saved from collapse with state aid. The taxpayers supported the group with 4.3 billion euros. The Hanoverians are paying back part of this with a 1.1 billion euro capital increase. Most recently, they had liquid funds of 3.5 billion euros after Tui was able to generate cash inflows for the second quarter in a row. The net debt fell to 5.0 from 6.4 billion euros. Further capital increases cannot be ruled out, said Joussen.