Thomas Cook

[Aviador]

Things are far from clear cut at the moment. So far as things stand there is still no official announcement that Thomas Cook are leaving LBA although as the saying goes, there's no smoke without fire. Hopefully it's not going to materialise.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Thomas Cook Base Closure

Things are far from clear cut at the moment. So far as things stand there is still no official announcement that Thomas Cook are leaving LBA although as the saying goes, there's no smoke without fire. Hopefully it's not going to materialise.

IT consolidation to help Thomas Cook cut £50 million costs

Thomas Cook aims to make annual savings of up to £50 million through a range of measures, including consolidating its IT infrastructure.

The travel agents said it expects to generate overhead savings of £40 million to £50 million in 2012 mainly through the upgrade of its IT infrastructure, renegotiation of supplier costs and reduction in buying requirements. It is also cutting more than 500 managerial and support roles.

Thomas Cook decided on these strategies after reviewing its UK operations due to the “challenges experienced in the UK this year” and an “uncertain outlook”.

According to its preliminary results for the year ended 30 September 2010, the company’s group profit was down six percent to £391 million compared with last year (£415 million), on revenues of £8.9 billion. Its revenue had also fallen by four percent, and Thomas Cook said its increases in profits from Central Europe and Airlines Germany were not enough to offset the UK decline. Its UK operations’ profit was 24 percent down on last year, to just £124 million, partly due to low demand in the summer.

Thomas Cook also revealed that its net expenditure on fixed assets and intangibles had increased, some of which was due to greater investment in its IT programme and its online travel agency proposition.

“We have taken further actions to simplify and streamline our UK business, which will result in significant cost savings on an annualised basis, helping to mitigate input cost pressures and any further deterioration in the trading environment.

“We are confident that the actions we have now taken to reinforce the UK business, together with continued progress on our strategic initiatives, leave us well positioned to make progress in the current year,” Thomas Cook said in a statement.

In September, the group agreed terms with Capgemini to move its IT to an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model

Source

So the cats out of the bag. Thomas Cook admit cost savings are going to be made up to the tune of £50 million pounds worth of savings. It's looking extremely likely that the rumours about the LBA base closure are going to be true.

 

[WYIA]

Yes and in update to this, my sources at AEU suggest it still could be them taking up the business at LBA and not Jet2 so who knows.

 

[User0001]

I didn't think TCX had a permanent crew base at LBA. Thought in the summer it was MAN flight deck and seasonal contract cabin crew and in winter MAN flight deck and cabin crew?

TCX are up to 5 aircraft short for S11 so are looking at a range of lease options to plug this gap. It wouldn't surprise me if they use the leased aircraft in the seasonal only bases, where they can still employ their own summer only cabin crew and use the flight deck of the leasor - a bit like Airtours / My Travel used to do with Skyservice. I wonder if people are picking up on the noises that LBA might be getting one of the leased aircraft and the chinese whispers have turned this into 'TCX are pulling out'

 

[Aviador]

the chinese whispers have turned this into 'TCX are pulling out'

The so called "Chinese whisper" came from a whole TCX crew who were very upset at the prospect of leaving LBA.

 

[backtrack]

the chinese whispers have turned this into 'TCX are pulling out'

The so called "Chinese whisper" came from a whole TCX crew who were very upset at the prospect of leaving LBA.

I have also spoken to a number of crew regarding this issue, and the feeling is the same, the prospect of a closed tcx base has been proposed by management as part of their cost cutting regime.

 

[User0001]

So, sounds like there is a year round permanent crew base then?

 

[backtrack]

Awfully quiet on the TCX front right now...

 

[lbaspotter]

Hi

Well the Good news is according to a poster on the dried prune forum its looking like Thomas Cook Airlines will be returning to Leeds/Bradford this summer season with one of the own Airbus A320's operating the based programme of flights. This instead of the flights been operated by third party airline as they had been rumours of Astraeus or others taking over not so long ago.

By all accounts Thomas Cook's LBA Crew starts recurrent training in February for when the season starts at half term.

 

[backtrack]

So what can we expect to see this year...similar to last?

 

[lbaspotter]

So what can we expect to see this year...similar to last?

Yeah its about the same. 1x A320 based operating 15x weekly services.

Rhodes has been dropped as Jet2 will do that route for Thomas Cook Holidays and Kos has been added as a new route for summer 2011. Meanwhile there has been some alterations to the days of some of the flights.

Mondays = Las Palmas - Dalaman
Tuesdays = Palma - Fuerteventura
Wednesdays = Larnaca - Antalaya
Thursdays = Zakynthos - Kos
Fridays = Ibiza - Mahon - Dalaman
Saturdays = Palma (W-legs to HUY) - Bodrum
Sundays = Enfidha - Antalya

Hope that helps

 

[tk343]

Just had a gander through the fly Thomas cook website (http://book.flythomascook.com/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi) and listed under the Leeds destinations is Izmir in turkey although its not currently on sale, is this a planned destination or just an IT error?

 

[lbaspotter]

Does the LBA aircraft do a w pattern to HUY from Enfidha in early May/late Oct? TCX are doing the HUY-Enfidha flight then, rather than Nouvelair, and I seem to recall from the Thomas Cook brochure that the LBA aircraft did a LBA-Enfidha-???-Enfidha-LBA pattern then

Cant answer that question just yet for you Humberside. If i do find owt out i'll let you know asap. Otherwise I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens in the first 2 weeks of May and in October.

 

[lbaspotter]

Just had a gander through the fly Thomas cook website (http://book.flythomascook.com/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi) and listed under the Leeds destinations is Izmir in turkey although its not currently on sale, is this a planned destination or just an IT error?

Its not on sale via the Thomas Cook holidays website and also not listed as a destination on offer from LBA in there summer 2011 brocher. Neither is it listed on the airports website destination guide at the moment.

So it could be a late route additation by Thomas Cook holidays and not on sale yet. One thing for sure is that it wont be operated by the based aircraft as it's fully utilised. So it would have to be operated by a non based Thomas Cook machine or by one of the many Turkish Airliners. There again like you say it could just be an error in the http://www.flythomascook.com system. Guess we will have to watch on that one for a while

 

[tk343]

maybe an addition for summer 2012... guess we'll find out more near the time.

 

[backtrack]

Fingers crossed its not an IT error.

 

[Aviador]

I hope you are right Lbaspotter. Hopefully LBA will survive the much publicised planned ££££ savings then.

 

[lbaspotter]

I hope you are right Lbaspotter. Hopefully LBA will survive the much publicised planned ££££ savings then.

I hope I'm right too Aviador about Thomas Cook basing one of the own Airbus A320 aircraft here at LBA this summer. Hence why the message I posted here on Saturday evening said

"that according to a poster on the dried prune forum"

 

[lbaspotter]

Hi

Tunisia flights cancelled and Tenerife services added throughout February and March 2011.

Just thought that I would let you all know that due to the on going political unrest in Tunisia. Thomas Cook Holidays have now confirmed that they have cancelled there flights operating from LBA to Monastir on the following dates.

Sundays 20th, 27th, February & Sundays 6th, 13th 20th & 27th March 2011

Services from LBA to Monastir will recommence from Sunday April 3rd

In the meantime Thomas Cook have added extra capacity to Tenerife by adding a 2nd weekly flight to be operated by the based Airbus A320-200 aircraft as a direct replacement operating on the following Sundays

February 20th, 27th & March 6th, 13th 20th & 27th

 

[lbaspotter]

Hi

Dose anyone know when and where the based Thomas Cook Airbus A320-200 Aircraft is due to position into Leeds/Bradford this week to take up its flying duites from Thursday onwards?