Development since 2013
In December 2013, TUI fly Deutschland abandoned its distinctive yellow livery after 7 years and replaced it with a blue design which had already been introduced at TUI fly Netherlands, TUI fly Belgium and TUI Airways. The first plane in the new colors arrived in Hannover on 17 February 2014.[7] The livery was updated in 2016, with titles shortened from "TUIfly" to "TUI".[8][9]
In September 2014, TUI fly Deutschland decided to relocate their operations at Zweibrücken Airport to nearby Saarbrücken Airport as Zweibrücken Airport faced bankruptcy and an uncertain future.[10] In January 2016, TUI fly Deutschland also announced it would leave Hamburg Airport entirely due to the increasing competition from low-cost carriers. The summer seasonal routes did not resume, and all remaining routes ended by March 2016.[11]
In September 2016, plans were announced to merge TUI fly Deutschland with Air Berlin's leisure operations - which were partially operated by TUI fly Germany - as well as Air Berlin's entire Austrian subsidiary Niki.[12] On 5 October 2016, TUI fly Deutschland confirmed it was in talks with Air Berlin and Etihad Airways to create a new holding company for leisure operations. The new company was planned to serve important holiday destinations from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.[13] In June 2017, TUI Group and Etihad Aviation Group announced that joint venture negotiations had ended.[14]
In July 2018, the airline announced it would close its base at Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport by October 2018.[15]
TUI Group has 70 737 MAX aircraft on order.[16] The order consists of 28 MAX 10 aircraft,[17] with the remaining variants unspecified as of June 2017.[17][16] In January 2019, it was announced that TUI fly Deutschland would receive 25 of these 737 MAX 8 aircraft by 2023.[18]
After the demise of Germania in early 2019, TUI fly Deutschland announced it would base aircraft at Nuremberg Airport to fly to several leisure destinations.[19] In November 2019, it was announced that the airline planned to operate its long-haul flights to destinations in the Caribbean and Mexico, similar to its sister airlines. Initially, the airline was to have taken on two Boeing 787s to operate these flights with plans to increase the number in the future. The flights were originally planned to begin in the Winter 2020/21 season, with scheduled and charter services to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Jamaica, and Barbados.[20] The plans were shelved for the foreseeable future in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.[21]
In October 2020, TUI fly Deutschland retired their last of their 20 Boeing 737-700s.[22] Several of them had been operated on a long-term wetlease basis on behalf of now defunct Air Berlin. In December 2020, the airline announced a major downsizing in operations with layoffs and a reduction from over 30 to 17 aircraft while also terminating all services from Cologne/Bonn, Basel/Mulhouse, Paderborn/Lippstadt and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden.[23]
