Thomas Cook ceases trading.

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: RexKramerPRT

In a nutshell not enough people can afford travel so the travel agent is broke....

Clearly the solution here is to let the rich get richer so the trickle down trickles faster...

I can't speak for Britain, but in the US I am traveling more than ever. For the first time 2 years ago I looked into a travel agent I get a discount with because of my job. When I told them the deal I had secured myself they told me to enjoy my vacation they would never match it even with my discount.

I'm happy for you I really am, however you keep saying that the economy is doing great because your circumstances reflect that much, so you travel a lot too.

Curiously what percentage of the population in America share your experience?

I do! The economy is buzzing and business are making money who in turn, pay their people. Not much in the way of increases but enough. Worldwide, commerce is up. Yes, Brexit sucks but somehow, I have feeling that will work out as a plus. Life in the rest of the EU isn't bad from what I hear and Asia is booming as it has for 20 years now. The ones that don't have it so good are the folks in the third-world.

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: RexKramerPRT

In a nutshell not enough people can afford travel so the travel agent is broke....

Clearly the solution here is to let the rich get richer so the trickle down trickles faster...

I can't speak for Britain, but in the US I am traveling more than ever. For the first time 2 years ago I looked into a travel agent I get a discount with because of my job. When I told them the deal I had secured myself they told me to enjoy my vacation they would never match it even with my discount.

I'm happy for you I really am, however you keep saying that the economy is doing great because your circumstances reflect that much, so you travel a lot too.

Curiously what percentage of the population in America share your experience?

13 straight months of average 3% or greater wage growth. The AVERAGE American has seen 3.5%, managers only 2%. I have never once said my situation is a reflection of the economy. I have said every single metric shows an amazing economy, and I am benefiting along with basically every single American. A very small few are not benefiting, that will always be the case.

My post was more about the fact no travel agent would come close to matching the deal I found myself. That is why many are failing. Although with the uptick in the economy people are not as worried about cost, so people are starting to go back to travel agents.

It’s nice to see the support the public have giving the staff. I have seen reports of passengers having whip rounds to pay the stewards in the final flights.

It's already been noted that the upper echelon management took out their big bonuses a couple of months ago. The word is there will be an investigation.
As for going bust overnight??? BS. They would have known weeks in advance that a collapse was coming. Kept their mouths shut and took in more bookings, more money to siphon off.
Technically it's always bad management.Old planes?? Naah, they've earned their money and future flights are a win win. How many companies (service companies) take your money, not a couple of dollars but hundreds of thousands, weeks in advance of providing that service? That's weeks and sometimes months (when people pay that far in advance) that they've had your money in their bank earning them more money for your holiday.
Too many people, management, shareholders, taking out of the pot. They've killed the golden goose.

According to this report, there are as many as 600,000 travelers that were left stranded by this!

a reply to: crayzeed

Disgusting. This is the kind of stuff we need accountability on. If you can't run the company, no bonuses.

originally posted by: crayzeed
It's already been noted that the upper echelon management took out their big bonuses a couple of months ago. The word is there will be an investigation.
As for going bust overnight??? BS. They would have known weeks in advance that a collapse was coming. Kept their mouths shut and took in more bookings, more money to siphon off.
Technically it's always bad management.Old planes?? Naah, they've earned their money and future flights are a win win. How many companies (service companies) take your money, not a couple of dollars but hundreds of thousands, weeks in advance of providing that service? That's weeks and sometimes months (when people pay that far in advance) that they've had your money in their bank earning them more money for your holiday.
Too many people, management, shareholders, taking out of the pot. They've killed the golden goose.

That's correct,
Those bonus's were in the £20million + bracket, so there's no doubt there will be a lot of falling out to come.
What TC was doing has become old hat very quickly, especially when it's so easy to book online now, but other factors out of control have been present, amongst them, unstable countries, BREXIT instability and even the weather!

So all the shops, the forty odd aircraft and crews had become big liabilities.

There will also be many transport jobs lost or in jeopardy in those countries Cook dealt with like a deal of Europe as well as the US. In all, 82 destinations throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

originally posted by: eletheia
[...]
everything ........ Didn't exist when Northern Rock went down!!!!

Wrong
Northern Rock customers were safe at the time due to EU regulations and the government upped the money that savers would definitely get to min 15 grand.
But all those idiots queued up to get their money out ( most of them definitely had never owned £15000), and that killed strong bank that had a lot of money, but had run out of cash.


RBS & Citigroup was a different story altogether: irresponsible lending to customers that couldn't pay back. Sooner or later that goes wrong

The missus used to work for TC around 12 years ago and even then she said most customers went in to look at the destinations, hotels etc then walk out and promptly book them online with Opodo and Booking.com. They were more of a shop window except for travellers who preferred getting everything done for them. That doesn’t really work these days, we can do anything ourselves... the same applied 12 years ago. They were faaaaar too slow to wake up and cut their branches.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti

originally posted by: smurfy
Just now from the BBC, awaitng online link to follow*.

Most users though should be protected by the ATOL Member agreement, however that would be a pretty huge monetary commitment, further to that, the British Government has already declined to bail out the travel company, while there is a hint that they will repatriate travellers caught up in the matrix.

www.walesonline.co.uk...

This seems all of a sudden. Was there news leading up to this about them being in any financial trouble? I follow the airline business closely and this hasn't come up in my news feeds.

Ya, kinda interestingly out of the blue..I will ask a travel agent friend.

originally posted by: Aldolas


Wrong
Northern Rock customers were safe at the time due to EU regulations and the government upped the money that savers would definitely get to min 15 grand.
But all those idiots queued up to get their money out ( most of them definitely had never owned £15000), and that killed strong bank that had a lot of money, but had run out of cash.

WRONG.....

Shareholders who lost everything they had invested when NR was nationalised

urge TMay the PM to investigate how the previous labour government *shafted*

the small investors who's shares became worthless when the bank was nationalised

they asked TMay to open an investigation on the rip off.

N.R. was nationalised in Feb 2008 by Gordon Brown's government insisting it was

necessary to help save the economy. A government appointed valuer said the bank

was worthless meaning Northern Rock shareholders and savers GET NOTHING in

compensation.

www.independent.co.uk... 86.html


So you see there was NO COMPENSATION or safety net for N.R. bank customers.

The safety net/compensation was brought in as a result of that fracas.

originally posted by: XXXN3O
a reply to: smurfy

Cannot help but feel for the folks heading off on holiday this morning...

Not to mention the staff too. What a mess.

Yes,

I get what you say,
All the people, workers or the holidaymakers, have been told to go home.
The jobs don't exist anymore, the holidays won't happen, even airports, some of which are already hard-up, even they will feel the pinch.
Manchester airport, has had a remarkable year, with so many cancelled flights with Monarch going bust...a possible 30million loss there, then there were huge cancellations when there was a fuel shortage, and delays after an IT failure.

a reply to: eletheia

Lol!!!!! I wondered how long it would be before *Brexit* got blamed

5hit happens all the time

Who should we believe you or Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson who said that:

The steep drop in the value of the pound following the 2016 Brexit referendum had piled the pressure on the heavily indebted and "struggling" Thomas Cook.

"All of the travel industry costs are in dollars — for example fuel maintenance and airplane leasing. With the weaker pound, the cost of everything has skyrocketed. For Thomas Cook, this has proved terminal," Branson said, adding that he was "saddened" to see the end of "the pioneer of organized travel."

I think he is better placed than you to comment on this

The article goes on to say...

The roughly 20% fall in the pound's value also meant less spending power for UK travelers abroad. That led them to demand better deals, independent aviation analyst Chris Tarry told CNN Business. This hurt margins at Thomas Cook, which sold flights on its own airline, along with hotel rooms, from brick-and-mortar stores.

"Brexit squeezed demand and made what Thomas Cook were trying to upsell on — that is, the heritage and service — less relevant to consumers. With a less ideal cost base, they couldn't compete simply on price with new entrants," said Richard Clarke, an analyst at Bernstein."

Link

Now I am by no means saying that the collapse of Thomas Cook is just down to Brexit, but lets not pretend that Breixt isn't a factor, not only with the above the the over all uncertainty it causes.

a reply to: eletheia

£20 Million in 4 years then have the cheek to ask the taxpayers to bail them out. I know RBS was bailed but it’s a bank and has responsibility to protect its interests

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Who should we believe you or Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson who said that:

The steep drop in the value of the pound following the 2016 Brexit referendum had piled the pressure on the heavily indebted and "struggling" Thomas Cook.
"All of the travel industry costs are in dollars — for example fuel maintenance and airplane leasing. With the weaker pound, the cost of everything has skyrocketed. For Thomas Cook, this has proved terminal," Branson said, adding that he was "saddened" to see the end of "the pioneer of organized travel."

Well he would say that wouldn't he !! He's a remainer........

But I bet he's rubbing his hands together at the demise of Thomas Cook.....

He'll pick up the slack *Virgin* flights, *Virgin* holidays all the more for

Virgin/Branson enterprises.

The article goes on to say...

The roughly 20% fall in the pound's value also meant less spending power for UK travelers abroad. That led them to demand better deals, independent aviation analyst Chris Tarry told CNN Business. This hurt margins at Thomas Cook, which sold flights on its own airline, along with hotel rooms, from brick-and-mortar stores.

"Brexit squeezed demand and made what Thomas Cook were trying to upsell on — that is, the heritage and service — less relevant to consumers. With a less ideal cost base, they couldn't compete simply on price with new entrants.

I call that bad management and it didn't stop the directors and management

pocketing their exorbitant bonus's before it went bust ..... they would have

been aware of the company problems !!

Now I am by no means saying that the collapse of Thomas Cook is just down to Brexit, but lets not pretend that Breixt isn't a factor, not only with the above the the over all uncertainty it causes.

This has been in the pipe line long before Brexit they bought other failing

companies borrowed excessively and should have moved into the online travel

era ages ago.

A Thomas Cook rep on the island of Corfu, friend of my daughters was told via email at 3am this morning that she was out of a job and had to make her own way back to the UK. She was totally gutted as they hadn't been told of all the wheeling & dealing going on back here. She was then inundated with tourists wanting to know what was happening and how they would get home. She and the other reps on the island haven't been paid and they are all broke and now dealing with hundreds of very irate people because these people have no-one else to turn to. All in all approximately 9000 people lost their jobs overnight.

I received an email this morning from Love Holidays telling me my holiday was in jepordy as TC airlines had gone bust and they use thomas cook airlines for their flights. LH are going through every single booking in booking date order and offering alternative flights holidays or a refund. How long this will take is anyone's guess. I've been paying monthly since July for next years' holiday and no clue whether to carry on paying or cancel my direct debit and of course all phone lines are permanently engaged and have been since 8am. Its a mess and it makes me very angry that TC were still advertising and taking bookings as of yesterday!

With the number of people earning enough to pay all their bills and being able to put some by for holidays falling through the floor over the last 10 plus years, it was only a matter of when, not if.

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Who should we believe you or Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson who said that:

The steep drop in the value of the pound following the 2016 Brexit referendum had piled the pressure on the heavily indebted and "struggling" Thomas Cook.

"All of the travel industry costs are in dollars — for example fuel maintenance and airplane leasing. With the weaker pound, the cost of everything has skyrocketed. For Thomas Cook, this has proved terminal," Branson said, adding that he was "saddened" to see the end of "the pioneer of organized travel."

I think he is better placed than you to comment on this

^^^^You asked^^^^ I replied.......

Well he would say that wouldn't he !! He's a remainer........

But I bet he's rubbing his hands together at the demise of Thomas Cook.....

He'll pick up the slack *Virgin* flights, *Virgin* holidays all the more for

Virgin/Branson enterprises.


**And today I find out via a friend in the flight industry that Virgin Atlantic have

opened a recruitment window specifically for flight crews of ex Thomas Cook

employees and are doing selective interviewing.**

Like I said it wouldn't take him long to pick up the slack.