Moves underway by CAA to repatriate Thomas Cook passengers

If the ATOL was to expire.
For people who have purchased holidays but not gone on them yet. Would they be covered to get their money back.
Or would they not due to ATOL insurance expiring?
Don't have any experience with TC. But would it be better to cancel now and try get a refund, or hope that you get it back after the failure?that's if it fails.

Filed for Chapter 15 in the US in a protective move so it'll be interesting to see what the CAA decide now

Probably see a large number of aircraft into Shannon for parking, this is so sad for such a great company and their staff I can't understand why the UK government did not step in with a bail out surely it would be cheaper than hiring in aircraft

Interestingly Condor are still flying, unlike all the other members of the airline group.

Sad news

ATC in Glasgow told the pilots on arrival late last night that they were going to the remote stand, the pilot said, 'I guess we know why' and the ATC responded 'Sorry guys'

Airbus A330 G-TCXC, Airbus A321 G-TCDD, G-TCDG & G-TCDH on the ground in Glasgow

Storm 10 wrote: »

Probably see a large number of aircraft into Shannon for parking, this is so sad for such a great company and their staff I can't understand why the UK government did not step in with a bail out surely it would be cheaper than hiring in aircraft

The Monarch collapse cost the UK taxpayer £60m to repatriate 110,000 passengers I read today, vs 150,000 who will need repatriation for Thomas Cook. Meanwhile, the size of a bailout they needed was £1.1bn on top of a £450m cash injection they got recently from a Chinese company. The aircraft leases are cheap.

Returning to government bailouts no matter how bad things are after Brexit really would help the UK along on its quest to return to the 1970s. What needs to happen here is the non viable business fails, everything gets washed in bankruptcy and the spare capacity in the market gets picked up by other operators, who will busy themselves buying the viable parts of the business - be that hiring some of their staff to service now excess demand or picking up their aircraft and crews. Short term painful disruption but hopefully people are wise enough to have insurance and the government will make sure everyone gets home.

In these situations, what happens to the crews stuck in remote locations? How do they make their way home?

Nijmegen wrote: »

The Monarch collapse cost the UK taxpayer £60m to repatriate 110,000 passengers I read today, vs 150,000 who will need repatriation for Thomas Cook. Meanwhile, the size of a bailout they needed was £1.1bn on top of a £450m cash injection they got recently from a Chinese company. The aircraft leases are cheap.

Returning to government bailouts no matter how bad things are after Brexit really would help the UK along on its quest to return to the 1970s. What needs to happen here is the non viable business fails, everything gets washed in bankruptcy and the spare capacity in the market gets picked up by other operators, who will busy themselves buying the viable parts of the business - be that hiring some of their staff to service now excess demand or picking up their aircraft and crews. Short term painful disruption but hopefully people are wise enough to have insurance and the government will make sure everyone gets home.

In this case there are all of the package hotel costs to be covered under ATOL, so a lot more costly than simply the impact of an airline collapsing.

The annual report for TC in 2018 says 20,163,000 passengers departed across the group airline (TC and Monarch)

Very sad news for the staff, and also for competition.

My very first trip to London in the mid-nineties, I actually had Travellers' Cheques in Sterling issued by Thomas Cook. Seems like prehistory now !

Some photos I took today of the impounded planes at Glasgow

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=111326394&postcount=4607

LXFlyer wrote: »

In this case there are all of the package hotel costs to be covered under ATOL, so a lot more costly than simply the impact of an airline collapsing.

Yeah but ATOL is an insurance scheme paid for by a £2.50 levy on each ticket and requiring companies to purchase insurance bonds. The net cost to the taxpayer will continue to be substantially less than if they bailed out the company and became responsible for its ongoing operation. 1970s style bail out everything policies are the ruination of governments. TC today, a steel company tomorrow, oops now we own the car makers and on and on it goes.

Nijmegen wrote: »

Yeah but ATOL is an insurance scheme paid for by a £2.50 levy on each ticket and requiring companies to purchase insurance bonds. The net cost to the taxpayer will continue to be substantially less than if they bailed out the company and became responsible for its ongoing operation. 1970s style bail out everything policies are the ruination of governments. TC today, a steel company tomorrow, oops now we own the car makers and on and on it goes.

Not disagreeing with any of that.

Just pointing out that it’s a little more complicated this time compared to Monarch.

Rawr wrote: »

Noticed that the Ving Group over here in Norway somehow managed to separate themselves from TC and are now back in action.

Wierdly, Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia were in the same boat and only needed to shut down for a day. Apparently they are back in action too.

I wonder if they'll hold onto the name?

The foreign subsidiaries of TC are not part of the receivership. they are legally separate. they do share some backend systems with the parent company which is why they shutdown temporarily.