I guess one reason why Thomas Cook was not really on aviation news is that it was more than just an airline (or group of airlines) since it was largely travel agent/package tours business and most of their airline functions involved just flying their package tour customers from Northern Europe to destinations in warmer climates (+ seasonal winter holidays in Lapland around the Christmas and New Year). I think Condor was the only airline in Thomas Cook Group that operated in "normal" fashion that it sold its flights directly to the customers, the rest provided primarily the flights in the package tours.
Another package tour operator with its own airline(s) TUI has already issued profit warnings this year due to risks in Brexit and 737 MAX groundings (they have 15 of those planes), although I guess the bankruptcy of one of the fiercest competitors might offer little help to the situation.

Here's just a sample of the numerous articles chronicling Thomas Cook's perilous position in the past few months

April 2019: The Economist Travel companies Thomas Cook and TUI are under serious stress
May 2019: Bloomberg Thomas Cook shares slump as losses mount
May 2019: The Guardian Brexit chaos hits Thomas Cook as losses mount to £1.5bn
May 2019: Deutsche Welle Lufthansa looks to snap up Thomas Cook's Condor airline
May 2019: The Sun FIGHT OR FLIGHT Can I still book a package holiday with Thomas Cook and can I get my money back if it goes bust?
May 2019: Financial Times Thomas Cook faces tough task to fly itself out of trouble
June 2019: The Express Thomas Cook: 21,000 jobs at risk in travel break-up
July 2019: The Guardian Can Thomas Cook find a path through its perfect storm of woes?
August 2019: Sky Thomas Cook in rescue talks to secure extra £150m
August 2019: BBC Thomas Cook to sell majority stake to China's Fosun
August 2019: The Mirror Thomas Cook saved after £450million deal with Wolverhampton Wanderers' owner
3 September 2019: Yahoo Could Thomas Cook go bust?
7 September 2019: The Telegraph Thomas Cook rescue deal under threat from pension trustees
13 September 2019: Herald Scotland Thomas Cook warns it could 'run out of money' and go bust
15 September 2019: BBC Thomas Cook 'racing to finalise rescue deal'
15 September 2019: Thisismoney.co.uk CAA braced to rescue Thomas Cook customers if £900m rescue deal collapses

People take risks all the time. Norwegian teetered on the brink and worked out a very unfavorable deal (for it) with its bondholders. Had that not come through, its passengers would be in the same spot.

Yet, there are posts every day from people who know of the difficulties, still purchase and then write that they hope that things will be OK next March or thereabouts.

Well, package tours are much more protected than standalone airlines tickets, since a substantial part of the population (used to) book packages. In the UK, the government jumps in, in Germany the tour operators have to offer compulsory insurance. So if the operator goes bust, you will be brought home.

The, cough "government", has said that it will also bring home people that are not ATOL protected.

They did the same for Monarch as well.

RE TUI - they are implicated as well as Thomas Cook operated a few flights for them. Norwegian does likewise, so clearly they have a shortage of planes.

Is there anyone on the same situation i am? i have a flight bought with condor, but the first leg is operated by thomas cook ( MT2843). Condor asked me like 800 euros to rebook my ticket, and doesn't let me skip the first leg of the trip, otherwise they will apply the no show rule. Is that possible? on the reservation statment it clearly says that my travel agent is condor, and not thomas cook, and more than that on my booking the reservation is still active and i haven't received any mail or call from the aircompany to inform me about changes or anything.

It would not be unreasonable to suggest the media did a fine job of talking TC into the ground. I'm convinced they have their share of the blame in terms of crossing the line between reporting the news and making it happen. However, the fact that TC was structurally weak enough to be talked into the ground is entirely on TC's management.

Indeed: it wasn’t primarily because of the media. It seems to have been their own mismanagement. See Frances Coppola’s tweets, in this thread:


And also her analysis here:

What is the routing, when are the flights, and when were you notified?

Who is Frances Coppola and why should we believe her opinion?

Is this only a plane ticket or a package, possibly including hotel, rental car, tours, etc.?

Have you tried to look up your flight status on the Condor website and also on sources like flightaware.com? Is there anything about the flight on the Thomas Cook website? What's the route? And what's your travel date? If your departure is very close, you could also try checking the relevant airport websites to see whether the flight is listed.

Government chap on TV this morning said words to the effect of "it's not £200M they need, it is going to end up as £1.7BN which is why we are not bailing them out".

I don't see any malice, inaccuracies, or ill intention in there. News media shouldn't let consumers know that companies are struggling? I see no justification that the media "made it happen".

I haven't been notified! i haven't received any email or call by condor. On manage my bokking everything is still confirm!!! the flight is on the 30th of September. CUN - MAN (MT8243) / MAN - MPX (BE7535).

it's just an oj ticket CUN - MPX / VCE - CUN (30 september 2019 / 16 december 2019). No extra services or package. I haven't been notified, the cofirmation is still up, on twitter fb and call center they told me the TC flight is canceled, but nothing more except the advise of TC website that says that they are not flying anymore.

I booked a one-way ticket for a friend, MAN-SFO in October. Anything I can do other than ask Amex to reverse the charge for it? Thanks for any ideas.

You're the lawyer here.

In the meantime, if you can find a decent one way award ticket for flights/dates that will work, I'd grab it. If you can't find any award availability, maybe a connection through Dublin or use Norwegian if they seem to still be in business? TATL one way tickets on legacy carriers will otherwise be expensive.

If I'm reading this correctly, this sounds like a good time to hang up and call again (HUACA). It sounds like your entire trip is intact except for the first flight leg and that you're willing to get to the second leg on your own. All you 're asking them to do is to remove a flight that isn't going to happen from your itinerary and otherwise hold them harmless? It seems like if you get the right person they could make an exception.

Yes, but I have no idea how the various schemes in the UK and EU handle failed air carriers. It sounds like there are special provisions for those who are stranded right now, but I don't know if there is anything helps those with future flight-only bookings.

In the meantime, I'm looking to do as you suggest: Book a replacement.

I believe the help is only in repatriation. It doesn't help if you haven't started your journey yet.

I don't think the OP should delete the first segment so quickly. It will be expensive to find a one way replacement flight. Separate tickets will push the risk of a misconnect (which would cause the remainder of the Condor ticket to be lost) onto the OP.

That is the government-assisted repatriation.

Many will have other forms of protection through ATOL, credit cards, even some banking transactions, and travel insurance.

I feel sorry for the workers who are losing their jobs but even more so for the thousands of stranded passengers who are either stuck overseas or have had the vacations that they have been saving up for cancelled. It seems there are too many of these stories these days. All airlines should be forced to have an insurance policy to cover these situations. The hike in ticket prices would be negligible. Where I live, in Quebec, when you purchase through a travel agent passengers are covered for these situation through a compensation fund. The extra cost to passengers was about 35 cents per $ 100 dollars but now the fund has been self-sustainable through investments so there is no contribution required. If they need to restart mandatory contributions let the airlines fund it. That or require all airlines to keep money in trust and not part of their general funds until after the service is rendered. The passenger should always come first.

There is no "help" for people having only air tickets.

The focus for now is to help people get home; not to help people get away on their now invalid tickets. The ATOL protection scheme only covers package holidays, not flight-only bookings. In the case of ATOL-covered packages, those people whose booked holiday packages have not yet started should get their money back, or perhaps an offer of a similarly-priced replacement, though obviously the former is more straightforward to provide than the latter.

I doubt, however, that ATOL would have covered any "package" sold with an origin in the USA (I doubt Thomas Cook ever really sold any such packages, probably only seat-only tickets on flights)

You should attempt to get a refund via your card issuer or via your travel insurance; you will have to stump up for the costs of any new ticket - unless you - or the intending passenger - have some kind of insurance via your card or their travel insurance that covers this specific set of circumstances.

I feel bad for all those anxious tourists, but nobody is going to miss the absurdly high forex markup at their ATMs. One of many reasons we avoided Thomas Crook...

Some key lessons here: (1) Pay more to fly first world commercial airlines rather than special charters (2) Use a credit card that includes good travel insurance on all tickets (e.g. Chase CSR) (3) Don't leave your passports with hotel management (reports of hotel owners requiring guests to pay for their stay, as TC had not paid them yet).

Just pay with a credit card. The full unused value will be refunded. No need for a complex scheme with holdbacks. The problem lies in purchasing new tickets. Hence the need for repatriation.

Holding back cash access until the service is rendered is not workable. The working capital is exactly what keeps many carriers afloat. In order to perform tonight's flight, they had to make the lease payment yesterday.

And don't let your hotel keep a passport beyond the time needed to verify your identity and register your stay with police if required.

However, if someone had valuables in the hotel's front desk safe deposit boxes, this could be a problem too if the hotel is insisting on payment before departure.

Good point about holding cash back, I thought it was workable since travel wholesalers work that way ( at least in Canada). I always pay with a credit card but I'm more concerned about repatriating clients. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for this which is why I think there should be mandatory default insurance, paid by the airlines. I doubt it would increase ticket prices you're talking about less than a dollar per ticket. People will not object to paying it. I think it would actually strengthen the public's fate in these ultra LCC's if passengers know that no matter what they will not lose one penny when an airline suddenly ceases operations.

(Bolding above is mine)...The sinister view is that someone wanted TC to fail and put an extra hurdle in the last minute...As it was stated earlier, somebody will make a profit out of this, after the loses have been socialized and disbursed among consumers/partners, somebody will buy the healthy parts with a profit, and BA will have less competition/wider customer base...Or someone may say that's just capitalism and doing business...

Wow. Given you are someone who has relentlessly professed your own expertise on such matters in the Norwegian thread, you have completely discredited yourself with this comment.

Thomas Cook's woes have been known for years - it has been on the brink several times - and its increasingly urgent situation has been repeatedly in the press these past few months. This has certainly not come as a major surprise to those with proper knowledge of the industry.

(1) Maybe, how much more? With a big enough gap, it makes sense to go with the cheaper option.
(2) That can be useful, but just about any credit card company will be willing to reverse the charge if the travel organization goes belly-up and doesn't deliver the flights, hotels, etc.
(3) Good advice.

If it is a US-based card, it is a statutory requirement. If the merchant vendor is in any type of formal insolvency proceedings, e.g. bankrupt, the card holder is required to charge back the item.

This is why card issuers increase the holdback for merchant vendors as their financial condition worsens. Banks likely have plenty of cushion to deal with chargebacks arising from this mess.

But, none of this gets you home and, absent a repatriation effort, you are stuck somewhere looking at what is likely a very expensive ticket.

In some sense, ULCC carriers *should* be riskier (or should be allowed to be riskier) and customers should be allowed to self insure if they wish to handle it this way. With mandatory insurance, who insures the insurance provider when there's a very substantial incident? Also, mandatory insurance would decrease incentives for these ULCCs and package tour agencies to be responsible, partly because potential customers will feel covered anyway and hence won't bother to investigate and send their business to airlines and agencies that are in better financial condition.

I suspect that part of Thomas Cook's problem was that credit card companies were increasingly holding back payments in case insolvency would lead to many chargebacks.

From the viewpoint of consumers, part of the problem is that many people apparently travel in this way with no emergency funds. Maybe instead of insurance, the customers should be required to escrow an amount equal to the cost of repatriation (but I know this won't happen). Yes, the government should help with evacuations when there are natural disasters and major military/political incidents and perhaps the government can help with repatriation logistics in cases like this, but why should citizens and residents expect their government to arrange and pay for their return flights if they're stranded penniless in some foreign vacation destination? Taking the vacation was a choice as was purchasing it from Thomas Cook.

(1) Obviously everyone has their own risk tolerance for risk v. reward (savings) on airline bookings. Example: Spirit Airlines. Personally I avoid Spirit having heard horror stories from everyone I know who has flown them. Particularly for irropps. But their flights still sell out so clearly some customers are willing to assume the risk. Another example: Interjet. Could have booked a very cheap nonstop for holiday travel. Instead, went with a very high-priced UA itinerary because I don't want to assume the risk my family will be stranded returning from Mexico.

Anybody who booked Thomas Crook should have known the risks - they weren't the only alternative to most of these destinations - but probably cheaper than BA, Virgin and even Ryanair & Norwegian.

(2) Of course consumers can do chargebacks on their tickets. BUT THAT WON:T GET YOU HOME. That is why you need good travel insurance - so you can call someone and get their assist in paying for an overpriced flight to get home. Assuming airline/travel company insolvency is covered by the policy. Both Amex and Chase provide automatic coverage for airlines booked on their cards - and one of the reasons I book all flights on these cards despite other cards offering higher bonus for airline spend, etc.

One wonders how many Thomas Cook customers paid with debit cards (or other means of payment) because they were unable to qualify for a credit card......or perhaps they had secured credit cards that don't carry any insurance benefit.

I would think that anyone with good travel insurance is trying to book a flight home on a regular airline flight of their choice rather than taking the repatriation flight to which they're assigned.

BTW, what happens if someone misses their repatriation flight? Would they be rebooked onto the next one or forced to make their own way home, at their own expense?

Ouch. Yeah, I'm guessing that with a debit card you have only an unpromising claim in bankruptcy court.

BTW, I just made the chargeback request from Amex using the chat window. Easy peasy.

It could be even worse if someone had paid with WesternUnion, PayPal, etc. or even had gone to a Thomas Cook brick and mortar office to pay cash.

Always use a genuine credit card for anything that's travel related if at all possible. Otherwise if there's a problem like this, you'll be with a group of tertiary claimants who might be lucky to get a couple cents on the dollar after a very long process.

Chase Sapphire Reserve and AMEX *will not* cover you in case of financial insolvency of an airline.

First off- AMEX doesn't offer cancellation insurance, so that's a full stop there.
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/when-to-buy-travel-insurance-versus-when-to-rely-on-credit-card-protections/

Chase Sapphire Reserve DOES NOT cover your airline ticket in case of Financial Insolvency by the Common Carrier. I just called Chase to confirm this fact and they confirmed it. The only way to get a claim is via chargeback not through CSR's insurance.

From CSR benefit page:
What is not covered by Trip Cancellation insurance?

It does not apply to a Covered Loss caused directly or indirectly from: • travel arrangements canceled or changed by a Common Carrier, Tour Operator, or any Travel Agency unless the cancellation is the result of severe weather or an organized strike affecting public transportation.

See the comments section here of people who were denied with CSR:
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/what-...ne-bankruptcy/
https://thepointsguy.com/news/credit...ne-bankruptcy/

Other than chargebacks in combination with using the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which offers 45-120 day protection, you really aren't protected by the trip insurance (if they offer it) from any of premium the credit cards like AMEX Platinum and CSR.

Interesting question.

I also wonder: if the repatriation flight provided is a seat (paid by the CAA, or self-paid if not covered under ATOL) on an ordinary scheduled service operated by a scheduled airline like VS or BA, could the passenger collect miles? Or would they not be able to since it wouldn’t be a “published fare”?