Thomas Cook Collapse - Failing to learn the lesson

The September 2019 collapse of Thomas Cook cost UK taxpayers at least £156 million, including repatriation flights and redundancy payments.
Total liabilities exceeded £9 billion, with the Air Travel Trust Fund facing an estimated £481 million in exposure for refunds and repatriation for those that were ATOL protected.

The travel company's collapse left 9,000 staff out of work and 150,000 holidaymakers stranded. Hundreds of thousands more lost the holiday they were looking forward to.

The reason for the colossal failure was that Thomas Cook had run out of their Client’s money. The lack of financial regulation in Travel meant they continued to trade using unwitting Client’s money as unsecured interest free loans.

Following the failures of Thomas Cook and Monarch reform was promised, both to protect against airline failure (AIR) and also to reform ATOL to protect pipeline money. Both consultations now gather dust in the drawer marked ‘all too difficult’.

Lamentably successive governments have kicked this can down the road and we are no better prepared for the fallout of the current crisis to hit airlines and tour operators. Tax-payers and the Travelling public are needlessly at risk once again with a minority of travel companies voluntarily safeguarding Client funds.