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Hanover (dpa) - The Tui Group looks back on the devastating Corona year in tourism.
CEO Fritz Joussen should also give an outlook on the coming months and give an interim status for the difficult winter season.
The 2019/2020 financial year (until the end of September) was shaped by the consequences of the pandemic for the world's largest travel company from Hanover - as well as for almost all companies in the industry.
After the program was almost completely suspended during the first wave in spring, business started hesitantly over the summer.
In the autumn, however, the uncertainty increased again due to new travel warnings for many countries.
State aid and capital aid are intended to protect the Tui Group from financial collapse - similar to Lufthansa or its competitor FTI.
In the third quarter of the financial year, the virus crisis tore Tui deep into the red.
From April to June, the bottom line was around 1.4 billion euros.
Sales fell by 98.5 percent, so that there was not enough money to cover operating costs.
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For some holiday destinations, bookings picked up again in the summer, so the Balearic Islands or the Greek islands attracted interest from holidaymakers.
Overall, however, there was recently talk of a clear “catastrophe year” in corporate circles that is unparalleled in the history of the industry to date.
In the 2018/2019 financial year, Tui had booked a net profit of 416.2 million euros - this had already been reduced by flight bans for the Boeing 737 Max.
In order to survive the crisis, Tui had already secured government aid worth three billion euros by the end of September.
The owners recently agreed with the federal government as well as private investors and banks on a supplementary financing package of 1.8 billion euros.
Above all, the federal government is involved - in the end, it could in the future be directly involved in the group via silent contributions, some of which are converted into company shares.
This still requires the approval of the EU Commission.
There is also strong criticism of the aid from trade unions because Tui is cutting thousands of jobs at the same time.
Many politicians also reject possible government entry.
After the summer, the group cut the current winter program by around a fifth, meaning that significantly less than half of the original capacities were activated.
Tui initially spoke of a winter booking level that is 59 percent below the previous year.
The prices rose slightly.
The company was more confident about the summer of 2021.
The market environment is unstable for the time being, Joussen explained in early autumn.
"And this will probably continue to be the case in the coming quarters."
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Meanwhile, Tui started the cruise business slowly and gradually.
At the Group's own airline Tuifly, where the fleet and jobs are to be noticeably reduced, the capacity utilization required in 2021 could not be foreseen more precisely recently.
Many vacationers have already rebooked their trips.
However, consumer advocates also criticized Tui for the fact that there is not always sufficient transparency about the options if the travel price is canceled and the travel price is refunded.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201210-99-636045 / 2