TUI confirms shop closures
TUI Travel has announced plans to close 100 of its 1,100 UK agencies.
The shop closures, due to the merger of TUI with First Choice, will focus on branches which are unprofitable or in locations where there is more than one shop.
The group has also begun redundancy consultations with staff at its offices in Crawley and Manchester, which are due to close and relocate to Luton.
TUI said it hoped most of the losses would be through staff turnover.
The announcement of shop closures has heightened the concerns of staff at Thomsonfly, whose union, Unite, has already been in discussions with TUI.
Unite has asked 1,700 cabin crew at Thomsonfly if they will support a full strike ballot after TUI failed to guarantee there would be no compulsory redundancies.
The vote is due to take place today (Wednesday).
A spokesman for Unite said: “With the redundancies announced by TUI today, cabin crew are even more concerned.
“It is complicated because Thomsonfly staff are not yet employed by TUI Travel.”
If there is a majority vote in favour, the union will have 28 days in which to take strike action and is required to give seven days notice of what action will be taken.
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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