Industry reaction to Thomas Cook failure

Reaction to Thomas Cook failure

AITO Chairman, Derek Moore
It’s a tragedy for the UK travel industry as a whole ‘that Thomas Cook’s UK arm has brought about the collapse of the overall Thomas Cook group. The ramifications are enormous – 9,000 in the UK will lose their jobs overnight, from travel agency and tour operating staff to their in-house airline colleagues. A further 13,000 will lose their jobs in Europe.

This will affect the industry massively – many operators and agents buy flights from Thomas Cook regionally across the UK, as well as from the London airports of Gatwick, Luton and Stansted. Consumers will have bought flights direct from Thomas Cook, too. While the July/August ‘peak summer season has passed, the popular late summer season across the Mediterranean short-haul routes still has up to six weeks to go, which means that a good many consumers will lose their holidays and will have to be refunded at huge cost to the taxpayer – estimates put the cost in the region £600M."

The knock-on effects will doubtless reverberate throughout the UK travel industry for many months, with a considerable human and business cost within the travel and hotel industries being part of the collateral damage.

Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association president Ken McLeod
This is a terrible day, not just for the UK travel industry, but on a global scale as well for the most renowned name in travel. Our first thoughts are with everyone who is affected by this, whether they are holidaymakers, staff or affected third parties such as travel agents, hotels and other suppliers.

We know that our own member agencies up and down the country are working very hard to assist customers who are currently on holiday with Thomas Cook and who have booked to travel in the future. It is obviously a worrying time for all concerned, but one of the key roles of a travel agent is to act on behalf of customers in times of crisis.

The only positive that we can take from this is that it once again the situation demonstrates the importance of consumer protection, in this case the ATOL scheme which ensures that most British travellers shouldn’t be left out of pocket or stranded overseas.

The repatriation by the CAA, code-named Operation Matterhorn, of tens of thousands of Thomas Cook customers will be a massive effort – beyond even the scale of the operation that was triggered following the collapse of Monarch Airlines in 2017.

While the majority of package holidays are protected by ATOL, many customers who have booked flight- only will not be afforded that same kind of protection. As an organisation, SPAA has long championed the introduction of a total transport passenger levy to offset the cost of repatriation should an airline or tour operators go bust.

The DfT’s airline insolvency review published earlier this year also recommended this approach. The current situation with Thomas Cook reinforces the need for such a scheme and a timeline for its introduction to be moved up.

Mark Tanzer, ABTA CEO
Along with many others in the industry, I am extremely saddened by the news about the demise of Thomas Cook. It is one of the UK’s most iconic travel brands and today thousands of staff are facing losing their jobs. For ABTA members, customers and industry colleagues, this will be an extremely worrying time. ABTA has developed detailed advice for our members about what to do next, as well as for customers. ABTA staff will be doing all we can to manage enquiries as swiftly as possible.

Gary Lewis, CEO, The Travel Network Group
Thomas Cook is the oldest brand in travel but it is their people and our friends we are really thinking of today. The failure has demonstrated again the remarkable resilience of our industry to deal with adversity, it underlines the importance of our financial protection models with the ATOL licence scheme.

I have every confidence that the CAA will have been fully prepared for this situation and will now be dealing with the massive task of repatriating Thomas Cook customers back to the UK as quickly and as efficiently as possible. It is now the role of our membership to serve those customers that are due to travel and I know that they will do an equally amazing job of managing that as sensitively and professionally as they can.

We have had our team in all over the weekend, helping members prepare for today and we will continue to be available to support them. We have also set up a special support line for members to call.

BALPA
The hopes of all Thomas Cook employees that their airline could survive has been brutally quashed this morning as they wake up to find they have no job.

While detailed plans to repatriate passengers have been carefully put together and Ministers have and will continue to claim the credit for that, the staff have been stabbed in the back without a second’s thought.

Despite continuing to keep Thomas Cook going in recent weeks with dignity and integrity while their own futures were being secretly decided we don’t even know if staff will get a pay cheque this month. It is despicable. Thomas Cook pilots and all staff deserve better than this.

For pilots, BALPA will be supporting our members through the legal complexities of what Thomas Cook liquidation means for them and doing everything we can to help them find alternative jobs in other airlines.

Laurence Hicks, former Wendy Wu MD
Really sad news about the collapse of one of the world’s oldest and most established travel businesses. Thoughts go out to all employees, customers and associated businesses affected. Much will be written and talked about regarding the failure of such an iconic business like Thomas Cook and there will be lessons to be learned I’m sure.

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