Travel operator TUI, with offices across Norfolk, has divulged the financial cost of the pandemic.

But the firm, which cancelled thousands of holidays because of coronavirus, insisted demand was bouncing back.

The group’s losses for the three months to June compare with last year’s earnings of £92.6 million.

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It said widespread cost-cutting action helped limit losses as it pushed ahead with a plan announced in May to slash up to 8,000 jobs worldwide.

The group, which resumes a scaled-back winter schedule of flights to the Canary Islands from Norwich in October, also said in July it was shutting 166 or nearly a third of its high street stores.

Bookings have plunged 81% for this summer and are 40% lower for its winter programme.

It has seen 1.7 million new bookings made since holidays restarted, it added, with bookings for summer next year up by a “very promising” 145%, though it has cut its programme by a fifth.

But the holiday sector’s hopes for a rebound this summer were dealt a blow by recent new UK restrictions on travel to Spain.

“Full-year 2020-21 will be a year of transition and we expect a normalised level of business from full-year 2021-22,” the group said.