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Thomas Cook - Gone
Mendonca In Asdas
Posts: 22,650
Got to feel for the staff of Thomas Cook, as well as anyone who has booked a holiday with them , big repatriation job ongoing.
Have used them in the past, shame, it’s getting harder and harder for businesses to survive.
Have used them in the past, shame, it’s getting harder and harder for businesses to survive.
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Flew with them this year. They were shocking. Not surprised.
Another large firm that sleepwalked it's way to extinction.8 -
They were a big player in the package holiday industry.
With Thomas cook going bust I can only see prices rising sharply for next summer.0 -
A friends Daughter is getting married in Jamaica in December, the whole family were going over by Thomas Cook. They must be devastated.0
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I think this was a long time coming, but failure to adapt to the way people holiday being the most significant. They have loads of travel agencies, and they are only used by a fraction of people nowadays. People much prefer booking flights and hotels through the Internet for example, so Thomas Cook are left with massive outgoings and declining profit. They apparently had a dreadful merger a few years ago too.
Add the weak pound putting people off, and they couldn't cope with it3 -
A very sad loss to the industry. Hate seeing long standing established names go to the wall.
i know all you millennials are comfortable with breaking down booking components, but the simplicity of a package holiday takes a great deal of stress out of the process, particularly for families and older people.
Suspect from today thats just got a little bit more expensive.10 -
One of my friends works for them. She's nearing retirement but what will happen to their pension?
Another friend is 'stuck' somewhere pleasant in Turkey and not too worried.
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Agree. We used Jet2 for a beach holiday in Spain classic, and there was little thought involved. Still all done onlineAFKABartram said:A very sad loss to the industry. Hate seeing long standing established names go to the wall.
i know all you millennials are comfortable with breaking down booking components, but the simplicity of a package holiday takes a great deal of stress out of the process, particularly for families and older people.
Suspect from today thats just got a little bit more expensive.1 -
I can see the Thomas Cook trade mark still being worth a lot of money. That'll get sold in no time0
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Prices have already risen sharply due to the value of the £ against the dollar and Euro. I’m paying 20% more for next year’s holiday as compared to the holiday that I had this year. Without wishing to start an argument, Brexit has a lot to answer for ... including the demise of Thomas Cookblackpool72 said:They were a big player in the package holiday industry.
With Thomas cook going bust I can only see prices rising sharply for next summer.11 -
My mum is on holiday in Turkey with a couple of friends and was booked to fly back with Thomas Cook tomorrow (flights only rather than a package tour).
Checking the new website set up by the CAA, her replacement flight has been confirmed.
The not so good news is that it has been pushed back a few hours and rather than getting to Gatwick in the early evening, she will be flying to Birmingham to arrive after midnight for transfer (coach presumably) to Gatwick after that!
Not ideal, but having spent the last few days looking for airport hotels she could stay in if stuck there, assuming it runs as planned then it could be worse - so credit to those involved in the repatriation programme.5 - Sponsored links:
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I think what's surprising to me is that the cost of the bridging loan is about £200M: what is the cost of them going bust in terms of repatriations, redundancies and pensions now being picked up by the public purse, not to mention the extra in benefits paid to all the staff who've lost jobs. Another short-sighted decision by the government.6
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Have used Thomas Cook for package hols for last 5years and really feel for the staff who we know very well.I had already booked for next year.I might lose my holiday but they will lose their jobs.Gutted for the staff
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They were shockingly inefficient. A friend of mine here worked for them until a couple of years ago. An example is that when he changed roles a couple of years before he left, his new job meant he no longer had a company car, but a fixed car allowance. In the following two years they continued to pay him the allowance and never took back the car - even though he told them several times to begin with. In the end he just kept pocketing the money. I think he got a pay rise and they were also supposed to change from paying him in sterling to paying him in euros, which also never happened. So he got the rise agreed but in £ meaning (at the time) about 20% higher wages. Again he informed them more than once, but no-one would take responsibility for sorting it out.
Very sad for the staff that are left and the poor customers who have been let down. We lost out when Monarch went phutt, but it was small beer compared with what many will face.
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The 200 million would of only delayed the inevitable.rananegra said:I think what's surprising to me is that the cost of the bridging loan is about £200M: what is the cost of them going bust in terms of repatriations, redundancies and pensions now being picked up by the public purse, not to mention the extra in benefits paid to all the staff who've lost jobs. Another short-sighted decision by the government.
I believe the total dept is about 1.5 billion and was growing.8 -
Will any more package companies go under?
I know you get your money back but is it worth the risk of losing your holiday?
Maybe better to do it yourself with a credit card!
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Feel sorry for the staff and those whose holidays have been affected.
Some may argue it’s progress in this changing world, parallels with Uber and Black Cabs.
Don’t worry though, the CEO and the rest of the directors will end up in similar roles at another company still being paid top dollar.
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I feel tremendously sorry for everyone employed by them and everyone on holiday or about to go on holiday with them.
What pisses me off is them, like others have known this is coming and up until they went pop, were still advertising and presumably selling holidays and flights.
They could have really streamlined and used their shops sensibly for supporting competitive currency exchanges, for offering post sales support as opposed to giving that out offshore, they could have offered in branch discounts seeing as they were intent on keeping the stores open and supporting those customers who don't want to book online but they sat and ambled into this catastrophic implosion.
The government could have helped and it makes me laugh when Grant Shapps is in the media giving it large about how there was no point spending taxpayers money on a failed enterprise that was going to fail more when the silly pricks in government had no problem launching money at the investment banks that set off this cataclysmic destruction of the economy because it involved the people who fund them whereas Thomas Cook just send the working class on holiday once a year6 -
The vast majority of the repatriation cost is covered by ATOL which is funded by the travel industry via every holiday you book for this exact reason.rananegra said:I think what's surprising to me is that the cost of the bridging loan is about £200M: what is the cost of them going bust in terms of repatriations, redundancies and pensions now being picked up by the public purse, not to mention the extra in benefits paid to all the staff who've lost jobs. Another short-sighted decision by the government.
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Always the worst part of any Company going out of business!!EastTerrace said:Feel sorry for the staff and those whose holidays have been affected.
Some may argue it’s progress in this changing world, parallels with Uber and Black Cabs.
Don’t worry though, the CEO and the rest of the directors will end up in similar roles at another company still being paid top dollar.2 - Sponsored links:
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Or alternatively, all those hotels that have thousands of rooms block booked out in advance by Thomas Cook, will now have to sell them off to other tour operators or direct to the public.blackpool72 said:They were a big player in the package holiday industry.
With Thomas cook going bust I can only see prices rising sharply for next summer.1 -
Very sad for all involved, but can't go throwing good money after bad. No-one would have continued booking with Thomas Cook knowing that it was in such a bad state.blackpool72 said:
The 200 million would of only delayed the inevitable.rananegra said:I think what's surprising to me is that the cost of the bridging loan is about £200M: what is the cost of them going bust in terms of repatriations, redundancies and pensions now being picked up by the public purse, not to mention the extra in benefits paid to all the staff who've lost jobs. Another short-sighted decision by the government.
I believe the total dept is about 1.5 billion and was growing.
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There was a fella just on the radio stuck in Turkey, that has done just that..stevexreeve said:Will any more package companies go under?
I know you get your money back but is it worth the risk of losing your holiday?
Maybe better to do it yourself with a credit card!
Unfortunately his credit card booked flight was with Thomas Cook.
It's ironic because it's that kind of do it yourself behaviour that has put pay to TC.0 -
About 10 years ago, I recall a travel agent friend of mine telling me that Thomas Cook would be in trouble somewhere down the line as they were greedily buying up smaller chains and independents galore. Around that time, you’d often see 2 TC shops in the same town or High Street.0
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I have used them a few times to go to Cuba. The issue is, if you go into their shops and book they are much more expensive than the same Thomas Cook holiday on online sites. The shop service isn't that great that people would rather do it than book online. They ususally add a couple of kgs of luggage and that's about it.
A couple of years ago, they stopped using a favourite hotel of ours. Fair enough, but we decided to book the hotel seperately (through Travel Republic) and get the flights through Thomas Cook. We went into the shop and were quoted over 1k each. We checked online and got the same Thomas Cook flights for less than half the price. We saved a lot of money that holiday doing it how we did.
More and more people who go on holiday are tech savy enough to do it all online. The times have moved beyond the company. Although it would be interesting to see how Tui is doing. If it is doing well, there may be other factors too.1 -
I've flown on Thomas Cook flights in the past and regretted it every time. They had the worst legroom of any carrier I had the displeasure of experiencing. I am sorry for Thomas Cook's customers and staff but I hope this collapse hurts their management and shareholders every bit as much as their lousy legroom hurt my knees.1
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They never properly recovered from buying out Co-op travel's retail outlets at a time when online booking was replacing traditional travel agents. Disastrous decision.
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Couldn’t you have just gone by sleigh?SantaClaus said:I've flown on Thomas Cook flights in the past and regretted it every time. They had the worst legroom of any carrier I had the displeasure of experiencing. I am sorry for Thomas Cook's customers and staff but I hope this collapse hurts their management and shareholders every bit as much as their lousy legroom hurt my knees.26 -
more competitors with skinnier margins
example
same flights and hotel with olympic holidays
£673 pp
thomas cook
£1236 pp
its a no brainer that people will shop around.3 -
Many years ago I started my working career with Thomson Holidays (now TUI), a major competitor of Thomas Cook. It astonished me even then that the whole marketing of package holidays was price led, with little or no regard to brand.
Thomson sent millions of people on holiday each year yet the company's profit was around £2M, purely from the interest earnt from having customers' money in advance in the bank. There was no trading profit.
Now we were not a well off family but even then my parents would consider paying £10 extra on a £400 purchase of a washing machine that had more features or was from a better quality brand. Was that true of package holidays? Oh no, if one particular holiday also offered by a direct competitor was £5 more expensive in the Thomson brochure, Thomson would sell diddly squat.
Much of my early marketing career was spent comparing prices across all the brochures then reducing Thomson's prices in the next brochure edition so we were cheaper. Intasun, another huge company, went bust during that time.
The mass market part of the industry has been an accident waiting to happen for decades. The underlying issues were there long before the internet.
Some of you may know that I now own and run a specialist tour operator offering tailormade holidays throughout UK and Ireland. We have always focussed on pricing carefully and offering a quality service to ensure we make a small profit and have a sustainable business. We have to jump through hoops every year to prove our viability to the CAA. Seems the big boys somehow blag their way through that regardless.
My heart goes out to the Thomas Cook staff on the ground and any holidaymakers whose future plans are thrown into disarray by this. The warning signs have been there for a very long time.
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