NEWS
COLLAPSE
THOMAS COOK
Yes, customers will be inconvenienced as a result of Tomas Cook’s failure. Te
consumer press makes the repatriation sound more like the Dunkirk evacuation, but we shouldn’t forget that it is an inconvenience, not a life-threatening situation. Tose who booked with a tour operator that
Noel Josephides CHAIRMAN, SUNVIL AND DIRECTOR OF AITO
While leaders fail to act, our industry will be forever divided
abides by the Package Travel Regulations need not worry. Tis is when the traditional industry excels – in looking aſter our clients, in providing a human voice at the end of a phone and knowledgeable representatives at the airport. As a tour operator, it’s the staff I feel for, and the
staff of companies linked to Tomas Cook – the hoteliers who won’t be paid, operators who paid for seats well in advance, tour operators that sold to Tomas Cook and Freedom retailers and who were told, even pre-collapse, that payments had been frozen. No doubt countless suppliers that provided credit are set to suffer.
Poor decisions So why did Tomas Cook fail? Many pundits claim the traditional package is dead and Tomas Cook failed to adjust. If so, why are Tui and Jet2 still flourishing in spite of the difficulties in a very tough market, hampered by Brexit? Over the years, the top echelons at Tomas
Cook have made poor decisions – linking with the Co-op retail branches was one. Tere is no doubt the company has been badly managed. Te current tough trading conditions sounded its death knell. Many other factors, including the weather and
natural disasters, have also played a part. When the Department for Transport’s Airline
Insolvency Review was published, aſter Monarch’s collapse, I wagered (correctly) that the government would do nothing because the airline lobby is too powerful. We again have the situation where flight- only bookings won’t be covered by the Atol scheme, but passengers will be repatriated free of charge, with the taxpayer again footing the bill because legislators move so slowly. Why is the Atol system a legal requirement for some, while client protection is ignored by others?
Unlevel playing field Our traditional industry is suffering – to a great extent because government legislators don’t act decisively. Tis, in part, also prompted Tomas Cook’s collapse. Te unregulated sector of the industry is thriving, and government has scarcely begun to ponder how to manage it. We are an industry divided, one part highly
regulated and the other – the online-only half – free to trade as it wishes. With the government seeming not ready to
control airline capacity or the unregulated internet platforms that dominate the industry, resort overcrowding and harmful emissions are set to grow, with the traditional half of travel about to suffer more unless the government wakes up and levels the playing field. How about Boris Johnson and chancellor Sajid
Javid swapping things around and offering the traditional industry some years of recovery with litle or no taxation, while the online sector pays up?
Read more columns by Noel Josephides:
go.travelweekly.co.uk/comment
14
26 SEPTEMBER 2019
travelweekly.co.uk
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