At Tui, bookings on Germany have been increasing sharply

At the world's largest travel company Tui, bookings on the home market of Germany have been increasing sharply for weeks thanks to relaxed corona requirements. "We hardly manage to cope with the strong demand," said the head of Tui Germany, Marek Andryszak. Since May, the number of bookings has even exceeded the level of the comparison weeks in the pre-crisis year 2019. TUI Deutschland is offering 75 percent of the capacity of two years ago in the summer. In particular, Mallorca, Crete and holiday destinations on the Turkish Riviera are in demand. As soon as there was clarity about the travel options, the inquiries skyrocketed. Rising vaccination rates, low infection numbers and the lifting of the travel warning for corona risk areas with an incidence below 200 ensured that consumers put their holiday wishes into practice. With the first wave of trips to Mallorca and Greece at Easter, the number of corona cases had increased neither in Germany nor at the holiday resorts, Andryszak said. "Organized tourism with high standards of testing is not contributing to the spread of the pandemic." The critical public discussion about the small Mallorca travel boom would have caused bookings to dry up quickly. The fact that the federal government then introduced compulsory testing for returning air travelers was helpful because the psychological pressure on sun-hungry customers had subsided. The federal and state health ministers have extended the test requirement for air travelers from abroad until mid-September. The main reason for this is concern about the introduction of virus variants. The uncertainty about this has so far not had an impact on the recovery of the travel business at TUI, the company said. Due to the good demand, Tui is expanding flight and bed capacities, explained Germany boss Andryszak. The company's own airline Tui fly will be in full operation with the remaining 22 aircraft in the summer. Before the Corona crisis, the German Tui airline had 39 aircraft. There was a dispute between management and the unions, especially with the pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit, about the downsizing and savings in response to the crisis. Airline boss Oliver Lackmann told the "Handelsblatt" that the cabin crew did not have to lay down because of the recovery in demand. They could also possibly be avoided by the ground crew. But of the once around 500 pilots, 120 have been dismissed.