Thomas Cook

[lbaspotter]

Well it looks like having a based Astraeus B757 at LBA next summer is now off so either we will get the Monarch or one of Thomas Cook's own aircraft.

As it looks like Astraeus have ceased all operations today and called in the recivers. I understand that all the airlines fleet of aircraft are to be grounded immediate effect

 

[Bigman]

The way we are going we might not have an IT programme at all next Summer. Please refer to the BBC website regarding a 65% drop in Thomas Cook share price.

 

[White Heather]

Yes it is looking very ominous for Thomas Cook and the implications for LBA are huge, given that Thomas Cook are by far the predominant IT charter company at LBA. If they disappear, LBA could be left with very little and Thomson would be loving it - so would DSA for that matter, unless Thomson then took the opportunity to step in at LBA to replace Thomas Cook. Even if they did, Thomson are not renounced for being adventurous with their destination offerings. Jet2 would also suffer badly, given that they have Thomas Cook passengers booked on a good few of their flights. The whole situation is very worrying.

To be fair, airports like MAN would take an even bigger hit in terms of passenger numbers, but at least they would still have various IT tour operators for their passengers to transfer to.

According to the 'experts' on the news, Thomas Cook are asking the banks to help them out over what promises to be a difficult winter, but the company should be able to continue trading. Yet, they are telling people that if they do book, they should make sure they are ATOL protected and book using their credit card - hardly likely to encourage people to choose Thomas Cook is it? The publicity machine is what can, and often does, put the final nail in a tour operator or airlines coffin. I only hope it doesn't happen this time and that they don't do what ILG did in the early 90's, taking Intasun and Air Europe with them.

 

[lbaspotter]

Maybe going off-Topic if somebody feels like moving this post to the TCX thead in the world airline forum, Please feel free to do so..


What i don’t understand is how Thomas Cook have manage to eat through £100m in the last 3 weeks? They were already carrying £902m debt. I understand that they do have some cash in the bank and that they were expected to report a headline operating profit for the year ended 30 September 2011. A figure quoted from another souce says it was going to be around £320million.

Will they be allowed to fail? I highly doubt it as I think the banks will most likely step in (If I remember correctly Airtours/My Travel group were around £945m in debt when they were merged with Thomas Cook a few years back).

It’s not just there UK operation suffering by looks off things. There French and Belgium operations are both down 20% year-on-year as less people are travelling to Egypt and Tunisia, while its Russian division also endured an extremely slow and poor start to the year as well.
Here in the UK, Thomas Cook has seen a tough trading position but it’s not on the same magnitude as seen in France and Russia.

A full review of the UK division has already taken place and it was expected to be announced on Thursday when there were due to report there full-year results. But as we now know, this has been delayed.
I did hear and read reports that they were going to announce the closure of some 120 high street shops here in the UK and that it would result in about 1000 job losses.

The UK airlines fleet is already being reduced sensibly as they had spotted the end of Long Haul charter market due to the rising costs of ADP. (3x Airbus A330's have already been returned to there leasing companies and sold on to Air Transat. A 4th A330 is going to Thomas Cook Scandinavia while one of the Airbus 320's has been returned to its leasing company. Plus 1x Boeing 767-300 is going on a long term lease to there German parent Condor)
But I can see that they will have to make further capacity reduction at there bigger bases eg LGW, MAN, BHX and GLA as there has been way too much over capacity this past summer in the charter market.

Hopefully the newly ordered Airbus 320NEO's will also start to replace some of the older Boeing 757-200 and Airbus 320's so to save even greater fuel saving.

So at the end off the day, I think Thomas Cook will survive this current storm. But it will be a different Thomas Cook to what we have now. If not yeah they might just go under within the next few years. Lets just hope for LBA sake they don’t go down and also don't decide to pull out of there smaller operating bases..

 

[whoshotjimmi]

Quite frankly, I am apalled that they have been allowed to run up debts of over £900m. How they ever plan to pay that off is beyond me. From what I understand, the group has been badly affected by unrest in Tunisia and Egypt as this is where a significant proportion of European winter bookings go but that the British operation is reasonably stable. If the group continues to have trouble then perhaps the British arm can be salvaged. However, who in their right mind would take on such a toxic loss maker?

A drop of 20% in bookings should, in theory, lead to a loss in revenue of 20%. It would not mean they would end up £900m in debt. They must therefore have been in real trouble before and to blame it on recent issues in Tunisia and Egypt is incredibly short sighted and almost unbelievable in my eyes. They clearly need to completely overhaul and restructure the business if they are to survive. If, indeed, they have enough time to do so.

What does this mean for LBA? Who knows. Losing Thomas Cook would certainly be a blow but people would still want to go on holiday. Thomson and Jet2Holidays could benefit big time from such a situation. If they are properly restructured, I would not necessarily expect them to depart LBA. There must have been a reason they came in the first place. Certainly one would not expect them to be at LBA unless the base made economic sense. Having said that, £900m doesn't exactly fill one with confidence.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

According to airliners.net, the merger with my travel/airtours also brought a nice lickle package of £900m debt! LOVELY.

 

[lbaspotter]

According to airliners.net, the merger with my travel/airtours also brought a nice lickle package of £900m debt! LOVELY.

Yeah I already pointed that out in my previous post. And it was £945Million.

 

[Bigman]

If they do go down, then LBA will be plunged back into the dark ages for sure. I doubt that anyone would want to start up IT operations, especially not Thomsons. Jet2 flights would be badly cut back as TCX take a good deal of seats on jet2 flights.

The only saving grace could be someone like Ryanair putting more flights on to lost destinations.

 

[Aviador]

If they do go down, then LBA will be plunged back into the dark ages for sure. I doubt that anyone would want to start up IT operations, especially not Thomsons. Jet2 flights would be badly cut back as TCX take a good deal of seats on jet2 flights.

The only saving grace could be someone like Ryanair putting more flights on to lost destinations.

Bigman you're such a drama queen.

Clearly it would be a setback for the airport but lets face it, LBA has suffered from gross under utilisation from the tour companies for decades and it has had to adapted accordingly which is why we see so many flights operated to bucket and spade destinations by low cost airlines here at Leeds.

 

[Bigman]

I thank you. I must be improving.

 

[lbaspotter]

Well the good news this morning is that the press have already stopped reporting about Thomas Cook been on the brink as they seem to have other things like the Egypt crisis to report instead now thankgod. Well it's a blessing in disguise for them really.

I've also just noticed that share prices in Thomas Cook Group have started clime back up this morning, There now up to around 13p after yesterdays plunge from 41p down to less and 5p at one point in the day. So hopefully they can keep this up and get the new deal regarding extra funding with the banks done quickly.

 

[tleeds]

I think that this is something that was very over-advertised by the news companies ie. BBC and SkyNews. I would have put money on a deal going through with a bank, because I can't see governments or banks for that matter allowing such a huge company, that could be saved, to fail.

Lets not forget, Thomas Cook have been around for over 150years, operating under many names, so the core of the company has seen a lot through it's time in the UK.

At-least they saved MyTravel, which it has turned out to be at a huge cost to the company...

 

[Jordan-34092]

If they do go down, then LBA will be plunged back into the dark ages for sure. I doubt that anyone would want to start up IT operations, especially not Thomsons. Jet2 flights would be badly cut back as TCX take a good deal of seats on jet2 flights.

The only saving grace could be someone like Ryanair putting more flights on to lost destinations.

Bigman you're such a drama queen.

LOL AVIADOR, I couldn't help but laugh at that.

Any if they do go bust who says LBA will be plunged back into the dark ages?

Sure Thomson will no longer want to have a base at LBA with DSA being only down the road and being a main base for them, but that doesn't rule out the likes of easyjet now does it?

Sure they may be wary what with Ryanair operating at LBA with soon to be 3 based aircraft but with that potential they could gain who says they wouldn't tap into LBA. Even if Easyjet didn't make a move on LBA there always the likes of monarch, after it has been said somewhere they want to open out into more UK airports, and LBA was on the list i was told, what with one of the managers from the airline coming and paying a visit.

Ah well that my point of what could happen, others may think otherwise.

 

[Bigman]

That's why I said 'someone like Ryanair'. Like you say Concorde Lover what's to stop the clockwork orange brigade giving it a go.

 

[lbaspotter]

What makes you think that Easyjet would be interested in having big expansion out of LBA with based aircraft when they have 2 big bases over the hill at MAN and LPL and up the road at NCL? I just don't see it happening with us having the largest Jet2 base and Ryanair increasing its offerings next summer.

If Thomas Cook goes down I think Jet2 would look into adding extra capacity from LBA and take over its routes. Hopefully Thomson may add a few extra flights and routes as well.

But like I said in me post the other day I think Thomas Cook will survive this down turn and have a major restructure, I think it will be forced into restructuring it's business by the banks who likely continue to support them with the extra funding that required.

 

[Jordan-34092]

What makes you think that Easyjet would be interested in having big expansion out of LBA with based aircraft when they have 2 big bases over the hill at MAN and LPL and up the road at NCL? I just don't see it happening with us having the largest Jet2 base and Ryanair increasing its offerings next summer.

I never said basing of aircraft merely more operations of routes.

And i do doubt Thomson i know someone who works for them and he said it unlikely Thomson will have more than a few routes from LBA now.

 

[airbus]

i was told by my brother who works at the airport and he said that thomas cook will be useing an monarch 757 of summer 2012 but dont no if it will be use an monarch or thomas cook call sign

 

[Aviador]

i was told by my brother who works at the airport and he said that thomas cook will be useing an monarch 757 of summer 2012 but dont no if it will be use an monarch or thomas cook call sign

This is looking more likely now that Astraeus has disappeared and now that Thomas Cook have received the backing from the banks.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It remains to be seen how much the recent publicity concerning Thomas Cook's financial strength will impact on the will of punters to book holidays with them, new banking facility or not.

 

[Bigman]

Who is going to sell the extra 50 odd seats per flight I wonder. Would Monarch take this on themselves?