Thomas Cook travel - original edition collapsed in 2019

Sassy Colin

Death or the gladioli!
Joined
Jan 29, 2010
Messages
71,197
Location
Aliens are in control of my tagline & location
You might disagree but it doesn't mean you are right.

Airlines are not like other businesses. The regulations around operating them see to that.

Many of the aircraft have been impounded. Some airports are parking vehicles in front of them so they can't go anywhere.
The aircraft operating certificates are invalid as they no longer have staff to operate and maintain them safely, same for the insurance cover.
Many of the aircraft owners will be in the process of taking back possession.

It's all a big mess and will take weeks to unravel. The stranded travellers need repatriating now.
That is fair enough, but considering either ATOL, or the CAA or HM Govt, are going to be paying the bills, there should be a possibility to use the existing fleet in order to save money. It's common sense really, there just need to be agreements in place for such eventualities.
 

Ish

Lights on for Luke
Joined
Mar 10, 2010
Messages
32,395
Location
Voted the best city in the world
Yeah pretty much. It's just much easier for younger people now who want to actually go see where they're going to, to do it all themselves online. It's so piss easy to organize your own "all inclusive" trip from start to finish these days that unless you're really lazy, or of the older generation who aren't well accustomed to the internet, it's pretty much pointless paying the excess to get someone like Thomas Cook to do it for you.

I was originally looking up package holidays to South Africa and it was around double the cost of what I'm paying now by booking it all individually, crazy money.
Yes! Come visit me MS! :drool:
 

Hughes35

Full Member
Joined
Sep 16, 2014
Messages
2,614
150K is only the number of british people. With other nationalities it was around 600K. Madness really.
Wow, I didn't know that. Even more mind boggling. Firstly how that many people use a service like that and secondly how they still managed to go bust!
 

11101

Full Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
21,337
That is fair enough, but considering either ATOL, or the CAA or HM Govt, are going to be paying the bills, there should be a possibility to use the existing fleet in order to save money. It's common sense really, there just need to be agreements in place for such eventualities.
There just isn't the time. It would take days or weeks to get all the paperwork right but passengers are stranded today. Far easier to hire aircraft ready to go immediately.
 

Sassy Colin

Death or the gladioli!
Joined
Jan 29, 2010
Messages
71,197
Location
Aliens are in control of my tagline & location
There just isn't the time. It would take days or weeks to get all the paperwork right but passengers are stranded today. Far easier to hire aircraft ready to go immediately.
No, what I mean is that there should be agreements in place for all airlines so that in such eventualities, automatically, the existing fleet would be utilised to get passengers back to their original destinations.
 

F-Red

Full Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2008
Messages
10,933
Location
Cheshire
No, what I mean is that there should be agreements in place for all airlines so that in such eventualities, automatically, the existing fleet would be utilised to get passengers back to their original destinations.
Impossible, you're not going to get all the contracts in place for all the old staff to operate them at the flick of a switch which is what ATOL need. That's why the concept of hiring the existing aircraft works so much better in scenarios like this. Plus given that ownership of the existing fleet may not be with Thomas Cook then it's quite complex at a time of businesses going into voluntary liquidation.
 

yumtum

DUX' bumchum
Joined
May 10, 2009
Messages
7,133
Location
Wales
Wow, I didn't know that. Even more mind boggling. Firstly how that many people use a service like that and secondly how they still managed to go bust!
Old people...and planes be expensive, even Lewis Hamilton sold his private jet in these uncertain times.
 

Rado_N

Yaaas Broncos!
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
111,186
Location
Manchester
Wow, I didn't know that. Even more mind boggling. Firstly how that many people use a service like that and secondly how they still managed to go bust!
I imagine that number will include a lot of people using just their flights, which were really good.
 

11101

Full Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
21,337
No, what I mean is that there should be agreements in place for all airlines so that in such eventualities, automatically, the existing fleet would be utilised to get passengers back to their original destinations.
That's sort of what the ATOL fund is for. Its being misreported that it will cost the taxpayer 100m to repatriate everyone, the fund that every airline and passenger pays into covers it.
 

André Dominguez

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
6,402
Location
Lisbon
Supports
Benfica, Académica
A great example of poor management. The main reason is pointed as lack of adaptation to the new technologies, but their daily client waves were still amazing numbers wise. There were days they would had waves about 1M clients.

And they already had their own plane fleet, which in a well managed business would be an amazing competitive advantage.
 

ThatsGreat

Full Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2016
Messages
1,656
Supports
Arsenal
Thomas Cook India is still running (different owners). So if any of you is feeling nostalgic you can accompany Glaston on his next trip here
 
Why did the original form go broke New

adexkola

Doesn't understand sportswashing.
Joined
Mar 17, 2008
Messages
48,610
Location
The CL is a glorified FA Cup set to music
Supports
orderly disembarking on planes
Bumping (for good reason)

Does anyone know what was flawed in Thomas Cook's business model? Or was it anomalous factors that triggered the collapse of the company?

Appreciate direction towards any news articles or journal articles that do deep dives into the collapse.
 

Carolina Red

Moderator
Staff
Joined
Nov 7, 2015
Messages
36,495
Location
South Carolina

Wibble

In Gadus Speramus
Staff
Joined
Jun 15, 2000
Messages
89,234
Location
Centreback
Does anyone know what was flawed in Thomas Cook's business model? Or was it anomalous factors that triggered the collapse of the company?
They had debt they could never pay off from revenue sounds like the cause. I think that article said they needed to sell 3 million holidays a year just to cover the interest.
 

buchansleftleg

Full Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2014
Messages
3,741
Location
Dublin, formerly Manchester
The Package holiday business is very volatile and TC's competitors were much better at predicting / reacting to changing holiday trends. TUI and jet 2 spend a lot of time analysing customer behaviour and trends such as "what food are people buying from Tesco?" in order to predict peoples aspirations ahead of booking a holiday. So if people are buying up lots of Mexican food from Sainsburys, they can anticipate increased demand for Mexican holiday destinations. If people are buying Greek food then there may be "spike" in Greek holidays.

I know it sounds ridiculous to make decisions based on Tesco clubcard data, but they actively want to hear about what OTHER destinations people are looking at to get ahead of the game. Jet 2 are particularly strong on their IT and Analytics. TC was also trying to maintain a large physical network of shops which undoubtedly added bigger costs and potentially hindered their ability to adapt / change systems to better capture customer behaviour.

These new or emerging destinations may have limited accommodation resources and if you can get in and secure the majority of rooms at a hotel in a sought after location early, then your competitors have less slice of the action. Sometimes a destination can be a flash in a pan / flavour of the month type thing and they will just look to utilise existing accommodation. If they think a destination has longevity they may get into partnership / borrow money to build new accommodation but that can be higher risk as TC found out.

Thomas cook had invested VERY heavily in Turkey and events in 2016 in the country meant Turkey plummeted in popularity overnight. Jet 2 had a huge presence in Turkey too but they seem to have been able to extricate themselves from this quicker / cheaper than TC did.

I also think that TC took a wrong turn around this time due to cost cutting. we had used TC for several holidays but all of a sudden the seats got smaller / less cabin room. The accommodation on one holiday we took was absolutely filthy (TC had just sacked the Cleaning team that had created previously excellent reviews) and they didn't respond to my complaints about cockroaches in our room.

The resort staff were just really bad as well - looking totally disengaged - something I'd never seen before on a TC holiday. We started using Jet 2 and I wasn't surprised to hear when TC went under a year or so later. Things were clearly in a big decline.
 

Tarrou

Full Member
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
25,669
Location
Sydney
This is very helpful

If you could expound a bit (not on the variant of shit, moreso details of how they were shit) that would be helpful:D
apologies I can't, my memory doesn't go that far back apart from remembering it was shit

I always just assumed it was one of those companies that didn't adapt to online quickly enough and got left behind, that combined with RyanAir offering flights all over europe for about 20 quid