Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.K. vows no tourist strandings
British government asked to examine travel operator’s fall
LONDON — One day after Thomas Cook, the British tour operator and airline, abruptly collapsed, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers scrambling to make arrangements, the head of the Civil Aviation Authority in Britain promised that “nobody” from her country would be stranded and that subsidiaries in several countries were working to get people home.
Thomas Cook said Friday that about 600,000 people were traveling abroad on its services, raising the prospect of hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded overseas after the company collapsed, but initial reports suggested that governments and private companies were moving to get people home.
In addition to the vast repatriation effort in Britain, several companies that were either subsidiaries of Thomas Cook or that use the name while running independently were still operating in China, France, Germany, and India.
But shortly after midday Tuesday, Thomas Cook’s subsidiary in the Netherlands, which on Monday said that it was open for business as usual, reversed course and said it had filed for insolvency. The Thomas Cook subsidiary in Belgium said Tuesday that it remained operational for now, but added that it was declaring partial bankruptcy and had laid off 75 employees.
Spain’s acting minister for tourism, Reyes Maroto, said Tuesday that there was still time to save Thomas Cook’s subsidiaries in Germany and Scandinavia from bankruptcy, and that her government
was having conversations “on the highest level” with officials in Germany and Sweden about the issue to get those markets secured for Spanish tourism, at least for the winter season.
The developments at Thomas Cook have raised questions about whether more could have been done to prevent the company’s sudden collapse and whether the actions of its leadership may have contributed to the failure.
The British business secretary, Andrea Leadsom, in a letter to the head of the Insolvency Service, the body appointed to handle Thomas Cook’s remaining assets, asked for an examination to be opened into the role of the company’s directors in the insolvency, requesting that the matter be given priority status.
The Financial Reporting Council, the British accounting regulator, said that it had also been asked by Leadsom to look into the failure of the company and determine whether to open an investigation.
The repatriation of British travelers was being described as the largest such peacetime effort in the country’s history, and Deidre Hutton, the chairwoman of the Civil Aviation Authority, speaking Tuesday morning to the BBC, said that around 15,000 people had already been flown back to Britain.
“Nobody is stranded, everybody will get their holiday and they will be brought back at the time they would have come back anyway,” she said. “I’m conscious that we’ve got a huge job to do still, because that’s about 8% of the total, but a reasonable start.”
Aena, the largest airport operator in Spain, said Tuesday that 18 repatriation flights were scheduled to depart from its properties, and all were operating normally.
“So far, the affected airports have registered no complaints,” Aena said in a Twitter post at midday.
An additional 74 flights were scheduled Tuesday to carry another 16,500 people back to Britain, and over the next two weeks, an additional 135,000 passengers will be repatriated, with the effort continuing until Oct. 6. Passengers who are traveling after that date will have to make their own arrangements.
Around 60% of the cost for the flights was funded by a government insurance program called the Air Travel Organizer’s License, which means that Thomas Cook customers who booked package travel — generally, some combination of flights, hotels and car rental — are assured of refunds for future canceled trips and for repatriation free of charge.
Customers who bought only flights from Thomas Cook do not have the same protections and may need to rely more on personal travel insurance, if they have it.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said the government should look into how such situations could be avoided in the future and seemed to back rules that would turn over responsibility for repatriation to travel companies rather than the government.
Travelers who had booked vacation packages through Thomas Cook were scrambling to find alternative ways to get to their intended destinations. Many customers turned to social media to denounce price increases for some popular destinations, accusing competitors of cashing in on Thomas Cook’s failure.
Thomas Cook had struggled financially for some time and announced its closing after negotiations to obtain at least $250 million in additional emergency financing failed over the weekend.
The British government decided not to bail out Thomas Cook, on the grounds that it would set a dangerous precedent for other companies, but Condor, an airline that is a Thomas Cook affiliate in Germany, may find itself in a more favorable position.
When the German carrier Air Berlin was close to bankruptcy in 2017, the government granted the airline a bridging loan of about $165 million, that allowed it to continue flying.
Condor is hoping for the same treatment, and Peter Altmaier, the economics minister, said Tuesday that the government would decide whether to issue a loan in the coming days.
Thomas Cook India posted a statement on its website Tuesday reassuring customers that it was not part of the British company after being acquired in 2012.
A Chinese subsidiary of Thomas Cook, which caters largely to Chinese tourists traveling abroad, said Monday that its operations would not be affected by the bankruptcy of the parent company.
“Nobody is stranded, everybody will get their holiday and they will be brought back at the time they would have come back anyway. I’m conscious that we’ve got a huge job to do still, because that’s about 8 percent of the total, but a reasonable start.” —Deidre Hutton