Thomas Cook has seen a marginal rise in bookings from the UK at the end of May.
The German-owned group said UK bookings were up 0.4% against the same period last year, with Germany showing a 6.2% rise and western Europe (Belgium, France and the Netherlands) up 1.2%.
Overall seasonal winter losses were reduced for the half-year ending April 30 by 13.4% to euro302.6 million with customer numbers up 1.2% to 3.3 million.
Thomas Cook UK saw winter passenger numbers decline by 2.2% but the company “still performed significantly better than the UK leisure market as a whole,” the group claimed.
The average holiday price paid across the group in winter was down 1.2% to euro590.
The group – 50-50 owned by Lufthansa and German stores groups KarstadtQuelle – said it expected to increase sales and earnings over the summer.
The company said: “As the positive trend in bookings has so far proven to be stable, Thomas Cook continues to be confident in increasing the number of customers at a rate above the market average, slightly increasing sales and, above all, due to cuts in structural costs, significantly improving earnings in the current financial year.”
Report by Phil Davies
