The company declared bankruptcy this Monday morning in UK.
Passengers of British travel group Thomas Cook queuing at Son Sant Joan airport in Palma de Mallorca today. Photograph: Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images
The holidaymakers in Europe will be immensely affected by the collapse of 176 old British tour company Thomas Cook. Passengers who opened the Thomas Cook website this morning to check the flight status and other details were in awe as the company declared bankruptcy this Monday morning in the UK.
Only one page opens to say, “Thomas Cook UK Plc and associated UK entities have entered Compulsory Liquidation and are now under the control of the Official Receiver. The UK business has ceased trading with immediate effect and all future flights and holidays are canceled. Dedicated support service is being provided by The Civil Aviation Authority to assist customers currently overseas and those in the UK with future bookings. Please visit thomascook.caa.co.uk for further information.”
These left thousands of travelers stranded at the airports. The government is now trying 40 different planes to fly 150,000 tourist home in the next 2 weeks.
Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook's chief executive, apologized to customers, employees, suppliers, and partners. This is a huge loss for the industry, the reputed Thomas Cook is known worldwide is very popular in Europe. They ran chartered flights in different parts of Europe and around the world. Gulf News published, “Thomas Cook offices in the UAE say they are unaffected by the collapse of Thomas Cook in the UK because they are affiliated with the Indian branch.”
The tour company has ceased trading and more than 22,000 global employees will lose their jobs in this turmoil. According to the sources, the giant was seeking the invest of 200 million pounds from private investment firms to save themselves but wasn’t successful. Thomas Cook is the world's oldest travel company, founded in 1841. The company has 1.7 billion pounds ($2.1 billion) of debt.
It’s such a sad day in the tourism industry to hear about the historical company collapsed. The hotels who ran only through Thomas cook will be deeply affected. The reason could be the rise of OTA’s, everything is channelized nowadays and OTA’s are slowly swallowing travel companies. Sadly, we are losing the human touch in the travel industry by going tech.
Our story and memory about Thomas Cook are deep, our hotels in Kenya and Zanzibar had long-time holidaymakers in Thomas cook flights. The travel agents became friends who came over for dinners and parties. It’s a complete sadness to hear that they have failed and couldn’t survive this tech world. The news is not positive for the industry at all.
Meela Seenarain
Dubai, United Arab Emirates UAE