TUI Welcomes LNG-Powered Megaship Amid Summer Booking Slump and Iran-Induced Profit Drag

The travel giant TUI is facing a season of contrasts. While the group prepares to take delivery of its newest and largest cruise liner in the coming days, the company’s summer booking engine is sputtering and the stock has shed nearly a quarter of its value since January.

The “Mein Schiff Flow”, a 333-metre LNG-powered vessel built at the Fincantieri yard in Monfalcone, Italy, is set to be handed over to TUI Cruises in Trieste. Captain Jan Rautawaara will then steer the ship on its eight-day maiden voyage to Mallorca in June. With capacity for almost 4,000 passengers, the megaship marks TUI’s first foray into liquefied natural gas propulsion in the Mediterranean. Its debut season will be in the western Mediterranean, after the company cancelled a planned Orient itinerary for next winter due to geopolitical risks.

That cautious rerouting reflects a broader malaise. TUI’s summer 2026 bookings in the Markets & Airline division are running 7% below last year’s level in terms of revenue. The UK market is the worst performer, down 10%, while Germany has slipped 3%. The group had 7.9 million summer bookings on its books at the time of reporting. After weeks of hesitation, however, TUI Austria has reported a rebound since last weekend, with last-minute demand surging for Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. The shift back to short-notice bookings is creating planning headaches for a company that had grown accustomed to earlier reservation cycles.

The most visible single blow to TUI’s earnings came from the Iran conflict. The company’s second-quarter adjusted EBIT was hit by a €40 million charge from repatriation efforts, care costs and lost margins tied to the crisis. An additional €5 million was lost after a hurricane struck Jamaica. TUI evacuated roughly 10,000 guests in March, including about 5,000 passengers from the Mein Schiff 4 and Mein Schiff 5, which were stranded in Abu Dhabi and Doha. All sailings on those two vessels were suspended until mid-May; the ships managed to leave the Persian Gulf on 19 April during a brief ceasefire.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying TUI?

Despite those headwinds, TUI narrowed its second-quarter adjusted EBIT loss by €14 million year-on-year to €192.7 million. For the first half, the group posted its best-ever H1 result: a €115.6 million loss, compared with a wider deficit a year earlier. Revenue dipped slightly to €8.56 billion, while net debt stood at €3.0 billion, unchanged from the prior period.

The outlook has been dialled back. TUI scrapped its original target of 7%–10% EBIT growth over last year’s €1.41 billion and now forecasts full-year adjusted EBIT in a range of €1.1 billion to €1.4 billion, on a currency-adjusted basis. Revenue guidance remains suspended until conditions stabilise. On the cost side, the group has locked in prices for 83% of its kerosene requirements for the summer season and for more than 80% of energy costs in its cruise division for the full financial year.

None of this has cheered investors. TUI shares traded recently at €6.80, a decline of about 24% since the start of the year and 28% below the February peak of €9.50. The stock slipped below its 50-day moving average and is testing support levels not seen since the initial Covid recovery. Whether the revived last-minute demand can fill the new premium cabin capacity profitably enough to hit the lowered EBIT target will depend heavily on how the geopolitical picture in the Middle East evolves through the peak summer months. The Mediterranean season has become a stress test for management’s margin assumptions — and for the multibillion-euro bet that bigger ships and LNG technology will pay off in a more uncertain world.