My nasty suspicious ancient old mind tells me the switch to TUI may be a devious plot to further “internationalise” the company and increase profits.
So that reps and resort support staff in future are more likely to be hired from whichever country TUI chooses to minimise costs.
I came back through Malaga airport a few weeks ago having just completed a THOMSON holiday. And all of the support TUI staff inside the airport for the company were non-Brit origin. There were German ladies, Polish ones, some Spanish ones, and some I’ve from no idea whence they came, but ZERO British ones.
They were all wearing TUI uniforms and signage and most spoke some English – Approximately....
The airport was dreadfully chaotic because of the recent Monarch Mess and all queues were VERY long. The “TUI” reps – nice folk, but maybe inexperienced – tried to get the huge THOMSON queues into separate controllable lines – but really were having great difficulty communicating what it was they were trying to achieve to a large bunch of tired, irritated Brit
travellers.
They failed. The queues continued to be a chaotic mess with those customers with the sharpest elbows reaching the head of the line first.
So if this is an indication of the wonderful benefits to come from TUI and its "exciting journey" – maybe a few more folk will join the exodus to Jet2.