Travel group Tui narrows first quarter losses

Tui, the German tour operator that merged with TUI Travel Plc last year, narrowed first-quarter losses, driven by hotels and resorts sales as well as cruises.

Ireland's Falcon Holidays is part of the TUI group.

The underlying loss before interest, taxes and amortisation loss was €107.9 million in the three months through December, compared with €141.1 million a year earlier, TUI said in a statement on Tuesday.

Sales rose 5.4 per cent to €3.54 billion. Chief executive Friedrich Joussen merged the Hanover-based holding company with Crawley, England-based TUI Travel to create a leading integrated tourism company last year, after an earlier attempt for a combination failed.

Joussen and Peter Long took over as joint CEOs of the combined company when it listed in December.

“We will now have to preserve this momentum,” Joussen and Long said in the statement. “Our goal is to improve our excellent prior-year operating result by a further 10 to 15 per cent by the end of the current financial year.”

TUI will pool its array of information-technology centres in order to streamline operations, and the company is also reviewing its fleet of 140 aircraft “in order to remain competitive,” with a plan being developed in the course of the year, it said.

Bloomberg