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TUIfly (Germany) is the third largest airline in Germany (after Lufthansa and Air Berlin) and was founded in January 2007 as a cooperation of Hapag-Lloyd Flug and Hapag-Lloyd Express whose brands Hapagfly and HLX.com are no longer used. All flights are operated by Hapag-Lloyd Flug while Hapag-Lloyd Express markets them. TUIFly is headquartered by Hannover Airport in Langenhagen, Lower Saxony. TUIfly offers both charter and low-cost flights. About 60% of all seats are sold directly, 30% as a part of a TUI holiday package, and 10% by other agencies. In contrast to other low-cost carriers, all seats are pre-assigned at check-in. Catering differs between short- and classical holiday-routes (see Inflight Services). With a fleet of currently 41 Boeing 737 aircraft, TUIfly is Germany's third largest operator, only surpassed by Lufthansa and Air Berlin. As it does not have an IATA or ICAO designator of its own yet, usually the former designators of HLX are used (with a few exceptions for legal reasons). While most flights are operated by Hapag-Lloyd Flug, there are also some flights operated by Germania. The airline had a special program for students in the beginning 2007. The program contained unrestricted number of flights through special airports in Europe during a period for a fixed fare. In fall the airline announced to close this program. In the second quarter of 2007, the load factor was at about 79%, after about 92% in the year before. The airline announced closing their Leipzig/Halle and Bremen bases, growing in Cologne/Bonn instead. On 29 January 2008, plans were announced to merge low-cost airline operations of Deutsche Lufthansa AG and TUI Travel PLC (Germanwings, Eurowings, TUIfly) into a joint and independent holding company, but were withdrawn as talks turned out to be unsuccessful. TUI Travel PLC confirmed on 27 March 2009 that it had sealed a strategic partnership with Air Berlin that would see Tui Travel take a 20% stake in Air Berlin, and Air Berlin 20% in TUIfly. Due to regulatory matters, this was changed to 9.9% . Air Berlin will also wet-lease 17 aircraft from TUIfly and take over all of TUIfly's city connections. TUI will focus on serving the charter market with 21 aircraft of the remaining fleet. From 25 October 2009, all German domestic flights previously operated by TUIfly were taken over by Air Berlin, as well as all flights to Austria, Italy and Croatia . Most of these flights are still operated by TUIfly aircraft, but are marketed by Air Berlin. |
