BA involved in repatriation of Thomas Cook customers
 

https://www.theguardian.com/business...avoid-collapse

Usually I thought this means that travelers get sent on chartered flights from other companies. But would BA provide space on their scheduled flights instead or as well?

As well, it’ll be a mix of charters and available seats e.g JFK will most likely be BA

The UK govt will only help (fund) stranded passengers who booked through Thomas Cook get home as it falls within ATOL.

https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/

If BA has the availability and gets paid for doing it then why not.

Wow!

I’m not sure if you are involved in B2B relationships, but nowadays 90 days payment terms is viewed as poor in some industries - several companies I work with are 120 days minimum, with some edging towards 180 days. Working capital (cash) is king.

When Monarch went bust, HMG effectively created a temporary carrier and repatriated those customers, ATOL aside.

Is there more on this (the Cook disruption) elsewhere on FT?

I've been wondering why there wasn't quite a bit already "here", given what is in the news (in the USA).

We read one disturbing report about a hotel that was concerned about not getting paid "later", but that may have been, er, fear-mongering ("they" temporarily locked guests in and demanded payment !?). Haven't found anything official about it.

This is where the *type* of travel insurance can matter a lot, at least for USA-based travelers.

GC

The value of good travel insurance is that it will handle the excess costs now and then fight with ATOL, credit card issuers (banks), and the like later. Same thing for hotels. Whatever the facts, it is nice to be able to simply provide a card to the property knowing that one will be covered.

So they have officially ceased trading (earlier than predicted uk thread) and airports have impounded some of the planes due to unpaid fees.

Thoughts very much with the staff and those affected

Ceased trading according to breaking news. I'm sure BA as well as many other airline companies will pull together to get holidaymakers home.

It would truly be scary to be stranded in a foreign country and locked in at one's hotel. What if there were a fire or other emergency? IMO the hotel should be criminally prosecuted for such a decision and permanently blacklisted on various travel booking channels.

And yet Condor are running a banner on their website right now that says they are still operational and it appears they are taking bookings......

Is Condor associated with Cook?
(Or is this a silly/naive question?)

GC

Condor is a LCC that interlines etc. with some other carriers such as AS and IIRC LH. it apparently began life as a charter operator, doing a lot of once a week flights from various major airports in Germany to some Southern European vacation destinations, including Greek islands.

Thomas Cook is a UK tour operator that sells packages and stand alone flights, operating its own (charter or scheduled?) airline, IIRC with 94 aircraft. It's main business would be taking Brits to Southern European vacation spots, but it has some worldwide presence.

Wasn't Condor owned at one time by Lufthansa and then Thomas Cook took a majority share or actually bought them fully? They show on their website and have for some years that they are part of the Thomas Cook Gp or something to that effect.