Paphos Life

Thomas Cook has collapsed after last-minute negotiations aimed at saving the 178-year-old holiday firm failed.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the tour operator has "ceased trading with immediate effect".

It has also triggered the biggest ever peacetime repatriation, aimed at bringing more than 150,000 British holidaymakers home.

Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook's chief executive, said the firm's collapse was a "matter of profound regret".

Read the article and chat about it below...
 

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Company was worth only 69 million at the end and senior management had taken 20 million out of the company in the last 5 years. Not a bad payment for failure.

Terry

The Chairman is Belgian the CEO is Swiss and it is trades on the Frankfurt Stock exchange as well as London.

It owns German charter airline Condor, which comes under the insolvent travel operator's umbrella, has applied for a bridging loan from the government. The carrier also said that, for now, flights will remain operational.
Other German tour operator subsidiaries under Thomas Cook include brands such as Neckermann, Reisen, Bucher Last Minute, Öger Tours, Air Marin and Thomas Cook Signature. According to their statements, travel sales have also ceased.
China's Fosun Group is a major shareholder

It doesn’t seem very British to me. There are 150,00 Brits but 450,000 other nationalities on holiday with them at the moment

22,000 workers worldwide, in this day and age, in a World of online this and that, seems to me to be excessive, was that a contributory factor?

Our eldest daughter works in one of the big hotels and told me this morning it's chaos; they have weddings due this afternoon and not sure if they're going ahead or not as they were arranged by Thomas Cook; very sad.

Jim

Will everyone involved get reimbursed and if so, by whom?

In my opinion, which probably doesn’t count for much, but, TC did not have enough hotel reps in their hotels.
If people pay the price of a package holiday they expect and should get the full package holiday experience and get help support and information from experienced, knowledgeable reps, who haven’t been shipped in for a season with little or no knowledge of the area.
Season 2018 and 2019 has been busy for us and we continually offer help and advice to TC PAX also TUI where sadly their reps are found wanting too.
Good old fashioned customer service is what is proving a winner even in these days of internet bookings and technology.

`my son used to work for Thomsons then TUI in the UK. Says margins are so tight, its the extras like seats on the plane where they made most money. The internet has changed holidays for good. People can book flights and holidays etc. Themselves. Sadly. T isn’t the same as a package holiday that some people want. I only used TC once, for a Xmas Caribbean cruise and I cant say they did anything to enhance my holiday. My missus has gone on a couple of TC holidays to Greek islands with her friend and found it fine. She didn’t want or need a hotel rep, so that didn’t matter to her.

The Boss's giving themselves massive bonus's just before the company collapsed didn't help.

I was due to fly out to Cyprus with Thomas Cook next month, glad I paid with my credit card, as I will have the cost refunded. I saw that there wasn't much hope of their survival on Sunday, so I booked another flight with Jet2 before the news broke.

We always book EasyJet as it's more convenient for us.
Booked a couple of weeks end Oct/Early Nov that cost us £400 for the two, which we thought was plenty for that time of year.
I looked last night and it was £777 for two!!

The prices will go up and down like yo yo's on a string until after the repatriation flights have taken place so best to wait a little if you can until the dust settles.... supply and demand plus lots of people all searching at the same time is driving the prices up just now.

I sent off my claim form to my credit card company this morning - they contacted me yesterday to tell me where I could get the form. And now we are changing our plans from our original choice of holiday so although I'm keeping an eye on things, I'm not going to book in this next couple of weeks.