KLM & TUI Netherlands team up to do something I haven’t quite figured out

The press release is titled “KLM and TUI Netherlands intensify cooperation extensively” which makes me think that there is supposed to be something related to cooperation of operations – perhaps even extensively – but I’ve spent the past week rereading the details and I’m still at a loss for what TUI Netherlands is really getting from this deal. The release continues, suggesting a significant increase in capacity in certain markets:

The two organisations will jointly work on serving various destinations on a bigger scale. This means the two organisations will begin cooperating on various routes and substantially expand their combined capacity on routes they already serve together.

Africa is a major focus in the release, with talk of TUI restoring Kenya as a destination, but the airline/tour operator will not be flying to Mombassa. Rather, TUI is simply selling seats on the KLM flights there as well as the Mauritius service that starts in November:

From November, TUI will offer capacity on three weekly KLM flights to Mombasa, with an intermediate stop in Nairobi. In addition, TUI will offer a substantial number of seats on all nonstop flights that KLM will begin operating to Mauritius in November. KLM will operate three weekly 787 Dreamliner flights to Mauritius, offering TUI a direct flight to this island paradise, where the organisation has its own chain of RIU Hotels.

Cartagena, Colombia and San Jose, Costa Rica are also mentioned in the release but only in that KLM flies to those destinations and TUI offers package tours to

So that detail still doesn’t have any additional service being added as a result of the new extensive cooperation.

Read More: No more KLM 747s at Maho Beach

When it comes to route changes the main point appears to be that TUI is dropping a route – its service to St Maarten in the Caribbean – and “transferring” that service to KLM, “TUI will suspend flights to St Maarten this winter, but will continue to offer the Dutch market package trips to this island in cooperation with KLM.” The TUI service was the first 787 into SXM; with the flight dropping the type will no longer serve the airport.

But, yeah, I really have no idea what the extensive cooperation really is other than TUI scaling back some flights and KLM bulk selling a bunch of seats in some tourist-focused markets. From a consumer perspective I’m not entirely sure this is really good news.

Header Image: The KLM 787-9 over Dutch Tulip Fields (image courtesy of KLM)