MANY people from Llanelli have been adversely affected by the collapse of Britain’s oldest travel firm.
Founded in Market Harborough in 1841 by businessman Thomas Cook, the company organised railway outings for members of the local temperance movement. 178 years later, it had grown to a huge global travel group, with annual sales of £9bn, 19 million customers a year and 22,000 staff operating in 16 countries.
But all that came to an end on Monday (Sept 23), the Civil Aviation Authority announced that Thomas Cook was to cease trading.
Sheree Jenkins’ family, Thomas Cook customers, are left stranded out in Turkey with no end in sight to their troubles. Speaking to the Herald, she said ”My family are in Turkey, my partner and 3 kids, and are due home Thursday but no flights are labelled as ‘go ahead’.
“8 days into the holiday and being told to pay £1170 to stay in the hotel or they will be kicked out. They are ATOL protected but feel they have no help at all and no one cares for them. They had already paid £3588 for the holiday and the children are distressed and crying.
“We are so stressed it’s unreal, my children are currently sitting outside with tears running down their faces absolutely heartbroken because we have been thrown out. The sun is beaming on us all in 32-degree heat.
“If it was me and my partner, I wouldn’t care but my kids are distraught and so stressed here along with heartbroken. All they want to do is go home and never want to go on holiday again.
“With this being our first family holiday too hearing that from my kids has made me feel absolutely terrible. It is a disgrace”.
The modern Thomas Cook was in stark contrast to what the company used to be. The firm’s fate was sealed by a number of factors including financial, social and even meteorological issues.
As well as weather issues – a super hot summer meaning people were more likely to have a staycation – and stiff competition from online travel agents and low-cost airlines, there were other disruptive factors, including political unrest around the world and many holidaymakers had become used to putting together their own holidays and not using travel agents’ package deals.
In May, Thomas Cook reported a £1.5bn loss for the first half of its financial year, with £1.1bn of the loss caused by the decision to write down the value of My Travel, the business it merged with back in 2007.
It is believed that Brexit was also a key factor in the disruptions with customer bookings as they awaited the fate of their country’s travel policies.
The airline company was then forced to be put up for sale in the hope that they could attain some much-needed funds to keep the company afloat. Surprisingly, the airline company had seemed to have acquired a deal with Chinese company Fosun but the creditor banks issued a last-minute demand that the company find an extra £200m which proved too costly in the end to find a solution for Thomas Cook.
The Government was asked for a bailout of £250m, which was denied. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said this on the Today programme: “I fear it would have kept them afloat for a very short period of time and then we would have been back in the position of needing to repatriate people in any case. The company’s large debts and High Street-focused business made it a poor candidate for survival”.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the company had “ceased trading with immediate effect” and it has also triggered the biggest ever peacetime repatriation, aimed at bringing more than 150,000 British holidaymakers’ home.
The tour operator’s failure puts 22,000 jobs at risk worldwide, including 9,000 in the UK and many from Pembrokeshire.
Add Comment