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British travel firm Thomas Cook collapses, stranding hundreds of thousands


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British travel firm Thomas Cook collapses, stranding hundreds of thousands

 

2019-09-22T105805Z_2_LYNXMPEF8L07B_RTROPTP_4_THOMAS-COOK-GRP-INVESTMENT-FOSUN.JPG

FILE PHOTO: The Thomas Cook logo is seen in this illustration photo January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration/File Photo

 

LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel firm, collapsed on Monday, stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the globe and sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history.

 

The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority said Thomas Cook had now ceased trading and the regulator would work with the government to bring the more than 150,000 British customers home over the next two weeks.

 

“Due to the significant scale of the situation, some disruption is inevitable, but the Civil Aviation Authority will endeavour to get people home as close as possible to their planned dates,” it said in a statement in the early hours of Monday.

 

“Thomas Cook has ceased trading so all Thomas Cook flights are now cancelled,” it said.

 

The firm runs hotels, resorts and airlines for 19 million people a year in 16 countries. It currently has 600,000 people abroad, forcing governments and insurance companies to coordinate a huge rescue operation.

 

Pictures posted on social media showed Thomas Cook planes being diverted away from the normal stands, and being deserted as soon as they had landed.

 

(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

 

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-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-09-23
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Sounds like they haven't even been paying the airport gate fees. Obviously bankrupt. There is no Chapter 11 bailout corruption in UK so TC looks toast.

Will there be an investigation into the incompetence of high paid  corporate boofheads who ran TC into the ground.?

Unlikely.

Airline passengers these days are nothing but cheap cattle to be herded in massive sheds.

Glad my travelling days are done.

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Old news...

Since Friday they have been trying to get the government to bail them out to the tune of £200M, hotels have been turfing guests out of their rooms or even holding them hostage until the pay for their rooms. 

 

Probably with all assets leased or mortgaged TC has nothing left as security against any loans, thankfully our government did not bail out TC, wise move as all they would be doing would be kicking this problem into touch, package tours are history.

 

Unfortunately the package tour companies pay for rooms a long time after the guests vacate them so hotels may be owed a lot of money and just taken a big hit on future bookings, so understandably hotel owners will try to get guests to pay again.

 

Down side of this will be hotel owners trying to get tour companies to pay up front or at least reduce the waiting time for payment which will put pressure on other tour operators.

 

And Brexit will have been a very heavy straw on the camels back...

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41 minutes ago, Basil B said:

Unfortunately the package tour companies pay for rooms a long time after the guests vacate them so hotels may be owed a lot of money and just taken a big hit on future bookings, so understandably hotel owners will try to get guests to pay again.

Letting big companies pay in arrears is always a bad idea.

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10 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Letting big companies pay in arrears is always a bad idea.

And once again a big company has been trading for a long time while insolvent, and what action will be taken against the Directors? 

 

beats me why a company that receives up front payments needs 90 or more days to pay its bills... 

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7 minutes ago, Basil B said:

beats me why a company that receives up front payments needs 90 or more days to pay its bills... 

Simple - because they can, they "bully" small businesses to accept their terms and conditions, that's the way big business operates these days, accountants and banks maximising their profit without a care for small business & they think it is a privilege to allow them to do business with them!

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2 hours ago, DeusExMachinaBKK said:

Can someone please explain what's funny about this comment? Many people used the "funny" emoticon, but apparently I'm too stupid to get the joke. Please, enlighten me!

Sure. Thomas Cook is comparable to Canada in the world of traveling. It was the inventor of package traveling, it was the oldest traveling company in existence, even older than Canada. It had its own Airline as well as a whole bunch of travel related subsidiaries and franchises in over 180 countries, including over 200 hotels, resorts, tour operators, travel agencies, insurance, finance, rentals and more. They also operated in Canada. It even had its own airline in Canada, Thomas Cook Airlines Canada.

 

Saying you haven't heard of Thomas Cook is like a Frenchman saying he haven't heard of Canada.

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2 hours ago, billd766 said:

It is that big country sitting on top of the USA, full of bears, lots of snow and ice in the winter and a fabulous waterfall.

But they couldn't afford a whole waterfall, so came up with some sort of sharing arrangement with their neighbour.

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By law all Directors are answerable and can be prosecuted if found negligent ...a sad day indeed, I have been through this back in 1974!

Sounds like they haven't even been paying the airport gate fees. Obviously bankrupt. There is no Chapter 11 bailout corruption in UK so TC looks toast.
Will there be an investigation into the incompetence of high paid  corporate boofheads who ran TC into the ground.?
Unlikely.
Airline passengers these days are nothing but cheap cattle to be herded in massive sheds.
Glad my travelling days are done.


Please excuse spelling mistakes/Grammar and Misunderstandings!
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By law all Directors are answerable and can be prosecuted if found negligent ...a sad day indeed, I have been through this back in 1974!



Please excuse spelling mistakes/Grammar and Misunderstandings!
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/22/thomas-cook-bosses-received-20m-bonuses-last-5-years-company/amp/#click=https://t.co/4nEZQ8xyzF

Please excuse spelling mistakes/Grammar and Misunderstandings!
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Personally I blame the accountants....who ought to be prosecuted...



Please excuse spelling mistakes/Grammar and Misunderstandings!
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6 hours ago, Basil B said:

Old news...

Since Friday they have been trying to get the government to bail them out to the tune of £200M, hotels have been turfing guests out of their rooms or even holding them hostage until the pay for their rooms. 

 

Probably with all assets leased or mortgaged TC has nothing left as security against any loans, thankfully our government did not bail out TC, wise move as all they would be doing would be kicking this problem into touch, package tours are history.

 

Unfortunately the package tour companies pay for rooms a long time after the guests vacate them so hotels may be owed a lot of money and just taken a big hit on future bookings, so understandably hotel owners will try to get guests to pay again.

 

Down side of this will be hotel owners trying to get tour companies to pay up front or at least reduce the waiting time for payment which will put pressure on other tour operators.

 

And Brexit will have been a very heavy straw on the camels back...

Not surprised to see someone attempt to blame Brexit. TC executives probably can't believe their luck when Brexit can be made the scapegoat...

 

I looked through a couple of TC balance sheets. For instance, in 2015 TC reported an absolute mountain of debts. Even more interesting, the annual report concludes that they failed to increase their impact on the Internet market. My conclusion is:

Thomas Cook built a little empire, made available by massive credits. And along came the likes of hotels.com, skyscanner.com, momondo.com and a myriad of others. And now they're in the red. My point is that even though they made a small profit in 2015, they didn't accumulate all that debt post Brexit referendum. They should have picked better analysts 10-15 years ago. 

 

Blaming Brexit seems a bit opportune, if you ask me. 

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