It now seems that TUI Travel has finally been able to beat the recession and reported an 11 percent increase in underlying operating profits to £443 million for the year ended September 30^th, 2009. TUI Travel, which is Europe’s biggest tour operator, showed that its revenues stayed the same at £13.8 billion, while its underlying earnings per share increased 17 percent to 23.8p.

This big announcement comes just after Tomas Cook, back on November 30^th of this year, reported underlying pretax profits for the year to September of £308.2 million. Chief executive of TUI Travel, Peter Long, said that they are currently pleased with the performance of the group in the second year as a merged company.

He continued on by saying that despite the challenging economic environment, which is taking its total on most of the travel world, they have been able to deliver strong earnings. They have demonstrated that their business model is effective and is being executed the way that the company wants it to. He said that their customers’ behaviors have demonstrated that, even against the backdrop of reduced consumer confidence, the main summer holiday is an essential expenditure.

He went on to point out that they have managed capacity carefully for the current winter season, and the results will remain confident. The company said that it has delivered £120 million synergy benefits and was aiming to hit its £200 million target by 2011.

The capacity reductions at the start of the year saw 13 percent fewer holidays to sell in the UK with prices up 10 percent. The summer of 2010 in the UK remains encouraging, with load factors in line with the prior year and average selling prices now up 7 percent year on year.