The winter tourist season in the south of Gran Canaria is full of new developments such as the boost to charter flights. This September, the Alltours subsidiary in the Canary Islands, which for commercial purposes continues to operate under that name, has made changes to the board of the Magnus Wikner company that owns hotels such as the Sunwing chain in Mogán and Maspalomas. After the Thomas Cook crisis, Ving took over Airtours Resort Ownership Spain and, therefore, Sunwing has businesses such as Ocean Beach Club Gran Canaria and Sunprime Atlantic View, in Gran Canaria, which are very popular among Ving customers in Sweden, Spies in Denmark or Tjäreborg (Finland).
Nordic Leisure Travel Group (Ving) operates its Sunclass airline and 14 Airbus aircraft to serve the entire galaxy of Ving, Spies, Tjäreborg, Sunwing and Sunprime. The tour operator, owned by British funds Altor Fund and TDR Capital, is confident that hiring will accelerate to levels higher than in 2023.
After the acquisition of Thomas Cook Scandinavia, the Covid-19 pandemic and then the war in Ukraine hit, meaning that Nordic Leisure Travel Group is not short of scares. It was in 2019 that NLTG created the charter airline Sunclass Airlines under the umbrella of Spies, whose main objective was to take Spies customers to their holiday destinations such as the south of Gran Canaria.
The 2021 management report states that management is not satisfied with the result, as it does not live up to the "business plan for the year" but "the losses are as expected due to the coronavirus pandemic," management wrote. A total of 187.612 passengers are said to have flown with Sunclass during the 2021 financial year. 85 percent of the passengers also flew during the last four months of the period, which covers the summer period.
The multi-million euro losses during the first two years of the company's existence mean that there has been a huge crater in the company's equity. However, the accounts show that the company hopes to restore equity in the future through capital injections, profits or a combination of both. At the same time, the owner NLTG made a statement of support and guaranteed continued operation until 31 December 2022, which is positive in light of its operations two years later.
Sweden's largest tour operator has started a major winter campaign. The campaign, developed by the in-house department of Ving, which is said to have 31% of the Nordic market together with advertising agency Åkestam Holst, is an evolution of the previous 'Holiday Effect' concept. The concept is based on the positive effect and impact that a holiday trip has on people. This time, however, the style is closer to Ving and illustrates how a little extra makes the holiday experience warmer like Maspalomas and Mogán.
