Thomas Cook news – live: Thousands of holidays at risk as travel company faces collapse
Thomas Cook needs an extra £200m in refinancing
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Your support makes all the difference.The giant travel company, Thomas Cook, is in a race against time to make a deal with its creditors over a refinancing package.
Last month the holiday firm appeared to have secured its future. But now the rescue deal appears to be in danger.
Follow our live blog for news and comment.
In other news, Ryanair pilots have called off five days of strikes.
Strikes called for 21, 23, 25, 27 and 29 September have now been called off.
A spokesperson for the British Airline Pilots' Association said:
Instead of engaging in negotiations Ryanair has reverted to type, electing to punish pilots by withdrawing their travel benefits.
Despite this, UK pilot representatives consulted striking members yesterday and agreed to suspend any further strikes in order to pave the way for meaningful negotiations under the auspices of the UK conciliation service, Acas.
Despite a strong turnout for strike action and a high level of commitment among pilots in Ryanair, the pilot representatives took the decision to allow a breathing space in the hope that constructive negotiations could get underway.
Thomas Cook's customer service department has had a busy day on Twitter answering queries from anxious holidaymakers.
Johanna Bonhill-Smith, travel and tourism analyst at GlobalData, says:
Thomas Cook’s current woes are compounded by accelerating consumer preferences to book holidays online with the UK online travel sales market value set to grow by 6.3% between 2019 and 2020 and 8.4% between 2020 and 2021 according to GlobalData forecasts.
The age of the typical package holiday tour operator is changing as increasing numbers of holidaymakers use online sites to put together their holidays themselves. Millennial and independent travellers are also directing more of their holiday spend online where tour operators like Thomas Cook face fierce competition.
The Independent's Simon Calder summarises when things started to go wrong at Thomas Cook:
The company can point to everything from the continued ban on flights to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt to uncertainty over Brexit for damaging its business, but there are longer-term and deep-rooted problems.
The low-cost aviation revolution and a series of corporate misadventures left Thomas Cook badly wounded in 2011, and though it made a recovery it has been struggling compared with its huge rival Tui and the relative youngster Jet2. Thomas Cook has been slow in adapting to the changing market, and creating premium products rather than commoditised cheap and cheerful holidays.
Thomas Cook still has hundreds of High Street travel agencies, a successful airline and nearly £10bn of revenue every year – but running the business profitably has been elusive.
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