Thomas Cook collapses – Free PDF Download

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The world’s oldest travel company, founded in 1841.
Hotels, resorts and airlines for 19 million travellers a year in 16 countries.
Thomas Cook was founded in 1841 by a Derbyshire-based cabinet-maker named Thomas Cook and the first holiday took customers 12 miles by train from Leicester to a meeting in Loughborough.
In 1928 the family sold up to the Belgian owners of the Orient Express, but the World War II saw it become part of the nationalised British Railways and returned to private ownership in 1972 and has seen a series of mergers and takeovers since.

CHALLENGES FACED BY THOMAS COOK?

The British company in recent years had been in deep financial trouble.
Saddled with debts to the tune of USD 2.5 billion.
It had already agreed on 900 million pound package.
It would have helped the company to see it through the winter months when it receives less cash and must pay hotels for summer services.
But Thomas Cook needed another 250 million pounds.
The request for an additional 250 million pounds torpedoed the rescue deal.
Thomas Cook bosses met lenders and creditors in London on Sunday to try to thrash out a last-ditch deal to keep the company afloat. They failed.

Thomas Cook employs 21,000 people.
It currently has 6,00,000 people abroad, including more than 150,000 British citizens.

The UK government has launched an operation named Matterhorn.
UK Civil Aviation Authority to launch a repatriation programme over the next two weeks, till October 6.
To bring Thomas Cook customers back to the UK.
It is being described as the biggest of its kind in peacetime in British history.

For those customers not flying from Britain, alternative arrangements will have to be found.
In Germany, a popular customer market for Thomas Cook, insurance companies will coordinate the response.
Operation Matterhorn, is modelled on the successful repatriation of passengers after the collapse of Monarch Airways in 2017.
The final cost of that operation to taxpayers was about GBP 50 million.

“Thomas Cook customers in the UK yet to travel should not go to the airport as all flights leaving the UK have been cancelled.” the Civil Aviation Authority said.
“I would like to apologise to our millions of customers, and thousands of employees, suppliers and partners who have supported us for many years,”
Thomas Cook CEO Peter Fankhauser said.