TUI’s Summer Bookings Slide as Iran Conflict Forces Costly Route Shifts

TUI faces €40M March loss from Iran war, suspends revenue guidance, and shifts capacity from eastern to western Mediterranean as shares hit oversold levels.

The Iran conflict is reshaping TUI’s summer season in ways that go far beyond a simple profit warning. While the travel group has locked in fuel costs for the months ahead, it cannot hedge against the sudden disappearance of customers from key destinations in the eastern Mediterranean.

Shares in the Hanover-based company have been under heavy pressure, closing at €6.49 on Friday. That leaves the stock down roughly 27 percent since the start of the year, with the relative strength index sinking to 22 — a level many traders interpret as deeply oversold.

A €40 Million March and a Suspended Revenue Target

The direct financial toll is already visible. The Iran war cost TUI around €40 million in March alone, as the company scrambled to repatriate thousands of holidaymakers and crew members from the conflict zone. The broader impact, however, is proving more persistent: travelers are steering clear of Turkey, Cyprus and Egypt, forcing TUI to rebook flight rights and hotel capacity at short notice toward Spain, Portugal and the Atlantic coast of North Africa.

Management has responded by suspending its revenue guidance for the current financial year. The adjusted operating profit target now stands at between €1.1 billion and €1.4 billion, down from earlier expectations of clear growth over last year’s result. Summer bookings in the core segment are currently running seven percent below the prior-year level.

Barclays Trims Target but Stays Bullish

Against this unsettled backdrop, Barclays analyst Andrew Lobbenberg has cut his price target on TUI from €10.50 to €9.00, while maintaining an “Overweight” rating. The new target still implies roughly 40 percent upside from the current share price of €6.44. Lobbenberg revised down his EBIT estimates for the current year, but left projections for 2027 and 2028 largely unchanged, viewing the headwinds as temporary.

The second quarter, however, offered a bright spot. TUI expects to report a positive adjusted EBIT of up to €25 million for the period, a sharp improvement from the triple-digit million loss booked a year earlier. The market barely reacted to the Barclays downgrade on Monday, with the stock holding steady.

Analyst Divergence and a Key Date Ahead

Opinion on the stock remains split. Bernstein Research rates TUI at “Market-Perform” with a €9.20 target, flagging weak demand as the primary risk. The US house notes that rising jet fuel prices are not the issue — TUI has already hedged 83 percent of its summer fuel needs. On the more optimistic side, J.P. Morgan recommends overweighting the stock with a €13.50 target, while Deutsche Bank sets a €12 price objective, citing resilient demand for classic package holidays.

The next major test comes on May 13, 2026, when TUI releases its full second-quarter and first-half results. Investors will be looking for detailed evidence of how much the rapid redeployment of summer capacity to the western Mediterranean is actually costing — and whether the oversold signal from the charts is a genuine buying opportunity or a warning that worse is still to come.