TUI Airways

TUI Airways has its origins in the 1962 founding of Britannia Airways — one of the pioneering British holiday charter carriers that transformed European tourism by making package holidays affordable for ordinary British families. Britannia was founded to provide charter flights for Universal Sky Tours and quickly became the UK's leading holiday airline, growing through the tourism boom of the 1960s and 1970s alongside the rapid expansion of Spain's Costa del Sol and other Mediterranean resort destinations. Through corporate mergers and acquisitions, Britannia eventually became part of the Thomson Travel Group — the UK's largest tour operator — which in turn was acquired by German tourism giant TUI AG in 1998. The airline was renamed Britannia Airways until 2005, when it was rebranded as Thomson Airways as part of a broader Thomson brand consolidation.

The final rebrand came in 2017 when Thomson Airways became TUI Airways following TUI Group's decision to operate its European travel brands under a unified TUI identity. The Boeing 737 MAX crisis created significant operational disruption for TUI Airways, which had ordered a substantial number of the type. The grounding from March 2019 to November 2020 forced TUI to lease replacement aircraft at significant cost. COVID-19 subsequently closed travel globally, resulting in TUI Group requiring significant German government support to survive.

Post-pandemic recovery has been strong, with record UK holiday booking volumes in 2022, 2023, and 2024.