The travel giant, which has announced plans to sell its portfolio of specialist holiday businesses, cut its ebita (earnings before interest, taxes, and amortisation) loss from €368.5 million to €288.3 million. Turnover during the six months to the end of March grew 2.7% to €6.8 billion.
Trading for summer 2016 remains in line with the company’s expectations but is being helped by a strong performance in the UK market where revenue and bookings were up by 7%.
The group added that in particular the UK had seen a “strong result, in particular for the Canaries, long-haul bookings and cruises”.
Its German market however has “remained impacted by very challenging trading conditions and lower demand for North Africa and Turkey”.
Tui has said it is still committed to achieving underlying ebita growth of at least 10% over the course of the year.
Chief executive Fritz Joussen said: “The improvement in our first-half operating result demonstrates once again the delivery of our growth plans and the resilience of our business model, with UK, Riu and Cruises performing particularly well.”
Despite the rise in revenue, however, City analysts seemed largely unimpressed by the results.
Connor Campbell, a senior market analyst at spreadex.com, said: "Whilst easyJet managed to make up for its pre-tax losses with a robust dividend and solid sales growth, Tui failed to impress investors this Wednesday.
"The markets were seemingly displeased with the travel giant’s decision to sell its Special Group division hot on the heels of giving the boot to Hotelbeds Group.
"This helped overshadow a better than expected 2.7% jump in half year revenue to €6.79 billion, as well as the fact that it narrowed its pre-tax losses to €319 million, leaving Tui with a 3% fall after the bell."
