German-based TUI Fly Deutschland, formerly TUI Fly has, after lengthy consideration, decided to launch long-haul Boeing 787 Dreamliners flights from Düsseldorf International Airport (DUS).

The German leisure airline headquartered at Langenhagen chose Düsseldorf ahead of several other German airports after weighing up the pros and cons.

Last October TUI Fly Deutschland announced plans to launch long-haul flights to Mexico and the Carribean as part of its winter 2020/2021 program.

Düsseldorf was one of several German airports being looked at

At the time of the announcement, talks were on-going with several German airports as to which would be the origin of the tropical bound flights. 

"We are currently in talks with several large airports in Germany, including Frankfurt Int'l, Munich and Düsseldorf Int'l," confirmed a TUI Fly spokesman to Germany's Express newspaper and carried by aviation website CH-Aviation. "There will be a decision at the beginning of the year," added a spokesperson for the airline.

We now know that Düsseldorf International Airport is TUI Fly Deutschland’s preferred choice. It will begin flying from North Rhine-Westphalia to the Dominican Republic and Mexico starting in November 2020.

Two 787 Dreamliners will be based at Düsseldorf

When talking about the decision to fly from Düsseldorf, TUI Fly Deutschland managing director Oliver Lackmann cited “good co-operation” with DUS. According to FlightGlobal, he said that passengers can look forward to traveling on “a comfortable aircraft” with “highly motivated crews”.

The aircraft Lackmann was referring to are two of TUI Fly Groups 13 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners that will now be based at DUS.

This expansion in the long-haul leisure market from Germany comes after the failure of Air Berlin, Monarch Airlines and leisure travel giant Thomas Cook.

While not alluding to other airline failures as to why TUI Fly Deutschland wants to get into the winter sun holiday business, Lackmann pointed out how TUI Fly was poised to take advantage, saying:

“If capacities were to be reduced in the coming months due to further market changes, we can also implement our planned fleet expansion more quickly.”

TUI will use the flights to link up with its cruise ships

While the exact days for the new flights have not yet been announced, they will be tied to TUI’s Marella cruise ships operating out of Puerto Plata, Cozumel, and Costa Maya.

After the collapse of Air Berlin in 2017, the Lufthansa Group's low-cost subsidiary Eurowings and Thomas Cooks German subsidiary Condor expanded their operations out of Düsseldorf with flights to North America and the Carribean.

Currently, only Eurowings operates long-haul transatlantic flights out of Düsseldorf. This is despite Lufthansa saying that they wanted to end all long-haul routes by the end of 2020 at the latest.

Citing increasing costs and competition, the plan announced last June was for Eurowings to focus on single-aisle short-haul aircraft flying point to point operations from their German bases.

It would now appear that Lufthansa has thought more about this and decided to let Eurowings continue flying to tourism-oriented destinations.

As for TUI fly Deutschland, the new flights out of Düsseldorf to Mexico and the Dominican Republic are still being configured but should be available for booking in the not too distant future.

After seeing what happened to Thomas Cook you would be thinking that leisure airlines like TUI fly Deutschland would be tightening their belts.

If as we suggested the flights are ferrying passengers to one of TUI’s six cruise liners, it makes sense that you would fly them and include the airfare as a part of the cruise package.

It sounds like a good idea to me, but what do you think? Please let us know in the comments.