Airline TUI to withdraw flights from Leeds Bradford Airport in 2019

The operator, formerly Thomsonfly, currently has one aircraft permanently based at LBA with summer scheduled flights to Majorca, Corfu and Rhodes. It also runs long-haul charters and European package tours from the Yeadon base.

The Majorca and Corfu flights and packages will remain but Rhodes will no longer operate and many of the charter destinations will also not be served by the airport in 2019 - although TUI has not confirmed which routes are affected.

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The travel company's cruise flights - which take cruise passengers to meet their ship - will still depart from Leeds Bradford.

One customer from Middleton in south Leeds said she had been contacted by TUI to inform her that her May 2019 holiday to Majorca could only go ahead if she agreed to change her flight times, while others were asked to fly from a different airport or have the booking refunded.

A statement from TUI said:

"We’ve been able to re-look at our summer 2019 programme and we’ve made a few changes to our flight schedule. We’ll be moving an aircraft which was due to be based at Leeds to another airport within our regional network as we continue to support growth at some of our key focus airports for the year ahead. This has resulted in a number of flights being cancelled from Leeds Bradford Airport. We are directly contacting any affected customers with alternative travel options and offering a gesture of goodwill."

We have approached TUI for further confirmation on which destinations have been cut.

A year ago, budget airline Monarch collapsed and its flights were withdrawn from Leeds Bradford.