Arkefly

TUI is a travel company with many branches. In Holland, TUI has many travel offices where bookings for regular commercial flights can be made as well as reserving package holidays. The company has its own charter airline, and this is Arkefly. Arkefly has a few budget airlines to compete with in the Netherlands but being under the wing of TUI, which has extensive reach in the travel-booking world, the airline has managed to stay safe.

Arkefly, being the Dutch charter for TUI, calls Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport home. The airline began as Air Holland back in 1981 but experienced financial problems that in the end couldn't be overcome. This made possible a takeover by the Exel Aviation Group in 2004. They renamed the company HollandExel, but didn't get very far. They were forced to declare bankruptcy in May 2005.

With the shell of an airline up for grabs, the TUI group snapped up the remains of Air Holland/HollandExel and took it under its wing. TUI assumed full control of operations and began to fly under the name Arkefly, named after Holland's largest tour company and also a TUI subsidiary, shortly after taking over in September 2005.

The fleet that TUI assumed control over was and still is rather small, and as such the airline primarily operates charter flights in busy tourist seasons. The meat of the fleet is 4 Boeing 767-300ER planes, and it's thanks to these that Arkefly can offer flights from Amsterdam Schiphol as far as the Caribbean.

Unlike other small charter services, Arkefly has an impressive range and flies everywhere, from various Mediterranean hotspots, locations around the Red Sea, North Africa, the Canary Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, Cuba and Brazil. For the shorter hauls Arkefly uses a leased Boeing 737-800, and will purchase a new plane of the same model in 2008.