The UK Civil Aviation Authority said it has launched Britain’s ‘largest ever peacetime repatriation’ to bring travellers home.
Travel giant Thomas Cook has ceased trading after failing to secure a last-ditch rescue deal, leaving an estimated 150,000 Britons abroad awaiting repatriation.
The company was unable to secure the extra £200 million needed to keep the business afloat following a full day of crucial talks with the major shareholder and creditors on Sunday.
“We will do our level best” to get stranded holidaymakers home said Boris Johnson as reports emerged of one hotel in Tunisia, holding Thomas Cook customers “hostage” until they paid extra the hotel said it would be owed by the travel agent.
The Prime Minister brushed off suggestions it would have cost less for the government to step in and bail out Britain’s longest running travel agent.
The Prime Minister was speaking before the announcement that the 178-year-old firm has ceased trading with immediate effect, with the jobs of 22,000 staff worldwide at stake, including 9,000 in the UK.
Mr Johnson told reporters on board the RAF Voyager travelling to New York for the United Nations General Assembly that his thoughts were with customers.
“It’s a very difficult situation and obviously our thoughts are very much with the customers with Thomas Cook, the holiday makers, who may now face difficulties getting home.”
Speaking before the collapse was announced in the early hours of Monday, the PM said “we will do our level best to get them (travellers) home”.
“There will be plans ready to deal with that if it’s necessary,” he said.
“One way or the other the state will have to step in quite rightly to help stranded holidaymakers.”
He said ways must be investigated so tour operators can protect themselves from bankruptcy, following the collapse of Thomas Cook as well as Monarch’s demise in 2017.
“One is driven to reflect on whether the directors of these companies are properly incentivised to sort such matters out,” he added.
The PM also sought to fend off criticism over the lack of a state bailout for Thomas Cook.
“It is perfectly true that a request was made to the government for a subvention of about £150 million,” he said.
“Clearly that’s a lot of taxpayers’ money and sets up, as people will appreciate, a moral hazard in the case of future such commercial difficulties that companies face.”
Richard Moriarty, the chief executive of the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), said the Government had asked his organisation to launch “the UK’s largest ever peacetime repatriation”.
In a statement, the CAA said: “Thomas Cook Group, including the UK tour operator and airline, has ceased trading with immediate effect.
“All Thomas Cook bookings, including flights and holidays, have now been cancelled.”
Thomas Cook’s chief executive Peter Fankhauser said his company had “worked exhaustively” to salvage a rescue package.
“Although a deal had been largely agreed, an additional facility requested in the last few days of negotiations presented a challenge that ultimately proved insurmountable,” he added.
“It is a matter of profound regret to me and the rest of the board that we were not successful.
“I would like to apologise to our millions of customers, and thousands of employees, suppliers and partners who have supported us for many years.
“This marks a deeply sad day for the company which pioneered package holidays and made travel possible for millions of people around the world.”
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told LBC Radio on Monday morning that Britain’s longest-running travel agent “didn’t move with the times”.
“The Government is not in the business of running travel operators,: he added. “What we judged… is that if we stepped in we were only a few weeks away from having to do this anyway.”
Earlier Grant Shapps confirmed that dozens of charter planes, from as far afield as Malaysia, had been hired to fly customers home free of charge and hundreds of people were working in call centres and at airports.
He said: “The Government and UK CAA is working round the clock to help people.
“But the task is enormous, the biggest peacetime repatriation in UK history. So there are bound to be problems and delays.
“Please try to be understanding with the staff who are trying to assist in what is likely to be a very difficult time for them as well.”
The CAA’s dedicated website for the firm’s customers, thomascook.caa.co.uk, crashed shortly after the announcement.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said all customers currently abroad with Thomas Cook who are booked to return to the UK over the next two weeks will be brought home as close as possible to their booked return date.
Thomas Cook package holiday customers will also see the cost of their accommodation covered by the Government, through the Air Travel Trust Fund or Atol scheme, the DfT said.
Unions representing Thomas Cook staff, of which there are 9,000 across the group in the UK, had previously urged the Government to intervene financially.
A million customers will also lose their future bookings, although with most package holidays and some flights-only trips being protected by the Atol scheme, customers who have not yet left home will be given a refund or replacement holiday.
For those on holiday, the scheme will make sure they can finish their holiday and return home.
One of the world’s oldest and largest travel companies, the firm had been trading for 178 years – having been established in 1841 by a cabinet maker who organised a day trip for temperance movement supporters.
According to its website, as of this year the group employed 21,000 people in 16 countries, operated 105 aircraft and 200 own-brand hotels and resorts.
Brian Strutton, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots’ Association, said lessons had not been learned from the collapse of Monarch Airlines in 2017.
“It’s a much bigger scale than Monarch. There is a real risk that if the worst comes to the worst, proper arrangements may not be in place for the repatriation programme and staff are still working while not knowing if they have a job or will even get paid for this month,” he said as this weekend as it looked likely the travel agent would collapse.
He said the Government did not act on its own review which followed the Monarch collapse, adding: “This is a mess that could have been avoided. Ministers need to step forward and take responsibility for the sake of passengers and staff.”
But many, including wedding parties, were left in limbo.
Lorna Clark, 33, and her fiance, Paul Ruckledge, who is in his 40s, are due to fly from Manchester to Paphos, Cyprus on September 30.
They are among a party of nine, from near Pontefract, in West Yorkshire, who bought Thomas Cook flights – which are not ATOL-protected – and fear they could face a scramble to get tickets from another airline if the company collapses.
Ms Clark’s sister-in-law Sarah Cooper, 35, said: “She’s pretty much close to a nervous breakdown to be fair. It’s taken years of planning, booking a wedding herself.
“Everything is ready, and all of a sudden we find the flights might not be going ahead.
“She’s just in an absolute panic. There’s nothing we can do until we find out for definite if they’ve gone bust. It’s just horrendous really.”
Reports emerged of Thomas Cook tourists at the Les Orangers beach resort in the town of Hammamet, near Tunis, being stopped from leaving the hotel amid demands of extra money the hotel was owed by the travel agent.
Ryan Farmer, from Leicestershire, told BBC Radio Five’s Stephen Nolan the hotel had on Saturday afternoon summoned all guests who were due to leave to go to reception “to pay additional fees, obviously because of the situation with Thomas Cook”.
With many tourists refusing to pay on the grounds they had already paid, security guards were keeping the hotel’s gates shut, refusing to allow guests out, or let new visitors enter.
“We can’t leave the hotel. I’d describe it as exactly the same as being held hostage,” Mr Farmer said.
Thomas Cook told one customer on Twitter: “A small number of customers were asked to pay for their hotel room before leaving Les Orangers in Tunisia yesterday, we have refunded those customers who paid on their credit cards.”
The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA), which represents workers at the company, said the Government should have stepped in with “real financial support”.
General secretary Manuel Cortes called for the Government to reveal how much it is prepared to spend repatriating thousands of Thomas Cook holidaymakers. The union had demanded an urgent meeting with Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom to help avert the crisis.
Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey earlier hit out: “The Government faces a simple choice between a £200 million Government cash injection to save the company now, versus a £600 million bill to repatriate UK holidaymakers.”
Nicole from Swansea, who did not wish to give her surname, said she was “absolutely devastated” at the closure of the firm she had booked with, which came before her “very first holiday”.
“And now we have the stress of trying to fix this and sort it all out,” she added.
“I am truly gutted, but also devastated for the people who are stranded on their holidays and for the employees who have lost their jobs with no warning, and this close to Christmas.
“It’s such a shame.”
Lucy Jessop from Hull has been holidaying in Mexico for two weeks and said she had been set to fly to Manchester with Thomas Cook on Tuesday.
She said she was “initially worried” after hearing about the company’s closure but the Government had been “amazing” in organising an alternative flight.
Ms Jessop said: “It’s the employees of Thomas Cook and all those due to go on holiday I feel for.
“We were the lucky ones, I suppose.”
One of those considering herself unlucky was an 18-year-old English woman whose single mother worked for Thomas Cook for almost 20 years.
The teenager, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said her mother had “known her job was vulnerable for the past few days but only found out she is unemployed when the news came out that Thomas Cook is over”.
She added that she was the eldest of three daughters, the youngest of whom is 10-years-old, and the now the only person in her home with a job.
“I have a part-time job with around 15 hours a week so the next few months will be a huge struggle for us.
“Especially since it’s Christmas soon.”
Danielle, who was due to fly from Manchester to Menorca at 6.40am, said she found out about the company’s shuttering online.
“We heard our holiday was cancelled from Twitter and then the news 20 minutes before we left for the airport,” she tweeted.
“We only booked the holiday on the 19th August.
“We are absolutely gutted.”
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said there are currently more than 150,000 British customers on Thomas Cook holidays abroad – nearly twice the number that were repatriated after the collapse of Monarch in 2017. An estimated million more have lost their future bookings.
The CAA said the Government has asked it to launch a repatriation programme over the next two weeks, starting on Monday and running to Sunday 6 October.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said all customers currently abroad with Thomas Cook who are booked to return to the UK over the next two weeks will be brought home as close as possible to their booked return date.
Thomas Cook package holiday customers will also see the cost of their accommodation covered by the Government, through the Air Travel Trust Fund or Atol scheme.
Customers currently overseas should not travel to the airport until their flight back to the UK has been confirmed on the dedicated website thomascook.caa.co.uk.
All bookings have been cancelled and, according to the CAA, Thomas Cook customers in the UK who have yet to travel should not go to the airport as all flights leaving the UK have been grounded.
When Monarch Airlines went bust in October 2017, the Government spent £60 million hiring planes to get passengers home. A figure has not been given but bringing back Thomas Cook passengers will likely cost more than this.
Atol provides protection to holidaymakers when travel firms collapse.
The scheme protects most trips booked as a package, such as flights and accommodation, or flights and car hire. It also applies to some flight-only bookings, particularly when the tickets are not received immediately.
If a business collapses while you are on holiday, the scheme will make sure you can finish your holiday and return home.
Customers who have not yet left home will be given a refund or replacement holiday.
Under normal circumstances, passengers who are not ATOL protected would be asked to find, and pay for, their own way home.
Holidaymakers can usually apply to their credit or debit card provider to be reimbursed. Not all travel insurance policies provide coverage when a firm collapses.
But in this case, the DfT said everyone on a Thomas Cook holiday with a return flight to the UK within the two weeks will be brought home free of charge, whether they are Atol protected or not and regardless of their nationality.
Thomas Cook has around 600 stores on UK high streets which are expected to close. Thomas Cook Group employs around 21,000 people in 16 countries.
All flights have been cancelled, according to the CAA. Those based in the UK, Scandinavia and the Balearics carry the group’s name, while their German sister company is named Condor.
