COLLAPSE
THOMAS COOK
After a long period
Heartbroken Cook staff face job hunt
Devastated Tomas Cook agents have described their “heartbreak” aſter learning their employer had gone bust leaving 9,000 UK staff without jobs. Many had sleepless nights
awaiting the news, which arrived in the early hours of Monday. Out of the 9,000 staff, around 4,000 were employed in Cook’s 563 retail outlets. A sense of togetherness was
palpable as staff looked to future opportunities in the industry while mourning the firm they had served – yellow heart emojis were shared on social media in a nod to Cook’s logo. Kerry Latham, assistant manager
at Middlebrook, was nearing 18 years with Cook and worked on Sunday. She said: “Never in a million years did we dream this. Everything we were hearing was the deal was going to happen. Sunday night we became slightly terrified. I slept maybe 20 minutes. Most staff have worked at Cook a long time. It became part of your life and it feels like that has been taken away.” Debbie Wood, of Cook’s Woking
branch, started with the company in 1976. She said: “It’s heartbreaking. It was more than just a job for a lot
of us. You do it for the satisfaction of finding someone the right holiday.” Kelly Ates, deputy manager at the
Gateshead branch, spent 27 years at Cook. She said: “Te saddest thing is we are not going to be a team anymore. I ate, breathed and slept Tomas Cook.” Phil Gardner, Cook’s sales,
e-commerce and marketing director, had to tell hundreds of staff they had lost their jobs. In a Facebook post, he said: “My heart goes out to all of you. You have all been a pleasure to work with and have genuinely made me very happy in the best job I ever had.” Faisal Farooq was a top-seller in
Cook’s long-haul scheduled team in Peterborough, making £3.5 million in sales in three years – and is now searching for work to avoid defaulting on his mortgage. “It’s devastating,” he said, having lost his pay and bonus. Candy Homes, a sales advisor
at head office who spent 34 years at Cook, drove 100 miles on Sunday to see her mother who had suffered a mild stroke. “I spent Sunday worrying about my 87-year-old mum and my job,” she said. “Tomas Cook was my life. I’m like a stick of rock – if you cut me, I have Tomas Cook at my heart.”
Ailing Cook goes
Te travel industry was thrown into turmoil this week as Tomas Cook went into liquidation in the early hours of Monday. Last-ditch atempts to salvage a
rescue failed with a senior industry source saying: “Te board could not keep the wheels spinning.” Te collapse of Europe’s second-
largest travel group leſt 600,000 holidaymakers needing flights home and 21,000 employees out of work – 9,000 in Britain. Te CAA began the biggest-ever
repatriation in the industry’s history, aiming to fly home 150,000 UK travellers as they finish their holidays. Te authority has leased more than 50 aircraſt and crew and plans more than 1,000 flights, with the operation due to run until October 6. Te UK repatriation alone is
Staff at Thomas Cook
headquarters, Peterborough
4 26 SEPTEMBER 2019
set to cost £100 million, with the final cost of the failure estimated at £600 million. However, Cook was also the number-two travel group in Germany, from where 300,000 had travelled, and number one in Scandinavia, making the failure the biggest in European travel history. Holidaymakers due to travel this week fared less well, learning at short
notice their flights were cancelled. Many Cook airport staff worked
as normal and unpaid to assist passengers. Agents worked from first thing Monday to rebook customers, with many tour operators stepping in to take over Tomas Cook bookings. Yet despite efforts to help, the
sector was lambasted in the media over the price of some replacement flights, with Te Sun accusing “greedy airlines of acting like vultures”. Operators and airlines defended
the prices as hundreds of thousands of customers sought to book new holidays. Jet2holidays pointed out: “Pricing works on a live system. As supply reduces, prices increase.” Tere was industry-wide dismay
at the fate of Cook staff, called in on Monday to hear the bad news. Agency groups wasted no time
in offering jobs to Cook agents and homeworking firms waived fees or offered deals to atract staff, who remain highly respected. At the same time, media and
politicians rounded on those at the top of the company. Business secretary Andrea Leadsom demanded the government Insolvency Service investigate the collapse and the
travelweekly.co.uk
PICTURES: Paul Marriott/Shutterstock
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