The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Thomas Cook workers berate ‘deluded’ chiefs
Apology and explanation for travel company’s sudden collapse fails to impress staff who lost their jobs
Former Thomas Cook employees have described executives as “deluded” following their apology for the firm’s collapse in front of MPs.
Dozens of cabin crew and other staff attended Parliament in uniform yesterday to hear chief executive Peter Fankhauser and other senior figures explain the company’s failure.
Mr Fankhauser said he was “deeply sorry” for the situation as he faced MPs from the business, energy and industrial strategy committee.
It emerged there was no contact between company bosses and UK ministers in the six days before its collapse, despite ministers from five other governments raising their concerns with executives.
George, who spent four and a half years as cabin crew for Thomas Cook and declined to give his surname, said: “It sounded like they were deluded.”
The 27-year-old, who worked in Manchester, said: “We were consistently told everything was OK – ‘everything was going to be fine, it’s all going through, everything’s going to be fine’.”
His colleague Scott, 33, who also declined to give his surname and worked from Manchester, said: “It’s shocking really. Some of us are in a better situation than others but there are families out there where three or four people worked for Thomas Cook.
“They’ve all lost their jobs so they’ve got no income at all and they (the executives) are walking away now with more money than all of us put together.”
They said rival airlines are now receiving up to a 1,000 applicants per job as Thomas Cook staff scramble to find work.
Lynn McKeller, who spent 31 years as Thomas Cook cabin crew, said: “The fact Peter Fankhauser didn’t do anything to contact any government minister, that’s hard. That’s disgusting. He went to other prime ministers.”
Ms McKeller, 56, who worked from Gatwick, said: “It’s just all very flippant.” When asked if the government should have bailed out the UK division the way Germany had, she said: “Well he didn’t ask them to, did he?”
Anna Oliveira, 41, spent 16 years at Thomas Cook out of Gatwick. She said: “We were always told we were one big company and now they can divide the company. Before they couldn’t divide the airline and shops and different parts of the company to maintain profitable ones – but suddenly now they can divide the parts of Condor and Scandinavia from Thomas Cook.”
Claire Hoang, a former Thomas Cook boss from Stalybridge, blamed the UK Government for not intervening. She said: “The government is trying to find a scapegoat and keeping making this about bonuses and exec pay.
“If they can bail out RBS, why would they not do it for a 178-year-old business employing thousands of people.”
“We were consistently told everything was OK