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Phil Good
Welcome to the Brexit Show! (Pun intended)
I know that many may think that this has nothing to do with Brexit.
O.K. in case of Thomas Cook there are some other reasons too causing the collaps.
I feel very sorry for the many people suffering from this.
But I fear that this is just the beginning.
So let's wait and see.
Just my 2 cts
Phil
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grzegorz67Quote
Phil Good
Welcome to the Brexit Show! (Pun intended)
I know that many may think that this has nothing to do with Brexit.
O.K. in case of Thomas Cook there are some other reasons too causing the collaps.
I feel very sorry for the many people suffering from this.
But I fear that this is just the beginning.
So let's wait and see.
Just my 2 cts
Phil
See Nate's post above which is the biggest single explanation. Other things haven't helped, like the weak pound and good weather in the UK this Summer making more people than usual holiday within the UK instead. The Travel Industry has been in trouble for some time (long before Brexit) with other operators going bust before. As Nate says, it's just too easy for people to book everything separately themselves for a holiday instead of buying a whole package. The internet has enabled this.
I personally voted against Brexit and would still like us to stay but the scaremongering and doom and gloom around it is silly at times. We're over 3 years on from the vote and the economy has continued to grow and unemployment is still falling. I notice no difference in day to day life here. If you plan to visit the UK for a concert or other reasons, do not be deterred. Your money will go further with the weakened pound.
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georgie48Quote
grzegorz67Quote
Phil Good
Welcome to the Brexit Show! (Pun intended)
I know that many may think that this has nothing to do with Brexit.
O.K. in case of Thomas Cook there are some other reasons too causing the collaps.
I feel very sorry for the many people suffering from this.
But I fear that this is just the beginning.
So let's wait and see.
Just my 2 cts
Phil
See Nate's post above which is the biggest single explanation. Other things haven't helped, like the weak pound and good weather in the UK this Summer making more people than usual holiday within the UK instead. The Travel Industry has been in trouble for some time (long before Brexit) with other operators going bust before. As Nate says, it's just too easy for people to book everything separately themselves for a holiday instead of buying a whole package. The internet has enabled this.
I personally voted against Brexit and would still like us to stay but the scaremongering and doom and gloom around it is silly at times. We're over 3 years on from the vote and the economy has continued to grow and unemployment is still falling. I notice no difference in day to day life here. If you plan to visit the UK for a concert or other reasons, do not be deterred. Your money will go further with the weakened pound.
I spoke to an elder English couple in March of this year and asked them about Brexit. The man said he voted for Brexit and his wife responded by saying that he now regrets. Why? His son has (or meanwhile maybe had) a big appletree farm. Due to all the Brexit stress of the past few years all his Polish employees left and returned to Poland. Since English people "don't want to do those jobs (apple harvesting)" he had to chop hundreds of trees and a major part of the crop went lost. Father and son (who voted against Brexit) are no longer on speaking terms (my modest way of expressing the family drama). See here a hidden Brexit drama.
As Mick Jagger sang: "England Lost".
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Nate
This was always going to happen as they didn’t adjust to the market.Not many people use a travel agent these days most people book everything themselves online cutting out the middle man.
Sorry for the people that will lose their jobs and the people who’s holidays have been ruined.
Nate
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mtaylor
Thomas Cook will not be the last one to fail.
Norwegian will be another one to fail.
Most likely to be financially restructured. They expanded too much.
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buttons67
brexit might not work but its the will of the people, that shouldnt be ignored.
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StonedAsiaExile
And after nearly 200 years in biz...wow.
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Spud
If we are to believe the "Red Top" newspapers...none of the debt and mismanagement which undoubtedly contributed has prevented the senior executives from paying themselves 75m in bonuses !
Companies can and do go bust for various reasons...some of them due to circumstances rather than fault ....but chief & senior execs running off with millions in these cases is always wrong, and needs to be stopped !
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bv
No need to blame this on politics or brexit. The company has not been able to adjust to the new markets. Just like Kodak, they were stuck with old solutions.
I am told they have a bunch of retail offices in UK. Really? Was it possible to walk into a Thomas Cook retail street office in UK? I haven't been into a travel agent office since internet came in the mid 90's. So Thomas Coiok had 20 years to adapt to new solutions.
Thomas Cook was killed by people doing their own self service on internet, booking cheap flights by Easyjet, Ryanar and other airliners, they did not get rid of all their staff and retail offices.
Also, a hot summer of 2018 did not help, when their business model was to prepay thousands of hotel rooms in Greece and Spain, while UK and other people did not need to travel to have a hot summer.
In short, bad management. Too bad really.
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Lorenz
The truth is still that Brexit contributed in a major way to the decline and was stated as a reason by Thomas Cook during their last quarterly results call. Many English stayed in Britain this summer, instead of traveling abroad due to insecurities concerning Brexit and the weak Pound (caused by Brexit). So, yeah, underlying of course is the issue that Cook didn't adapt to the market. But without Brexit they might have had enough time to manage a turn around. In summary, Brexit did directly contribute to the company going belly up just now and I see no reason why we would try to claim Brexit had no influence at all.
In general, of course Brexit is a topic that shouldn't be discussed on here. Most old people voted for Brexit, a decision that is hard to understand by anyone under the age of 40 - and I assume people above 40 are in majority here
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bv
I think many are eager to blame whatever is happening in UK on Brexit. For political reasons, or just to explain anyhing bad or complicated.
First of all, Thomas Cook brought in a new Swiss CEO five - 5 - years ago, long time before Brexit was in discussion, to sort out their mess. He was too slow and may be it was too complicated.
Secondly the British Pound haven't changed that much, and all airliners buy fuel at the same prices, with proper currency protection.
Reading the Thomas Cook story from the past few years is a business wise tragedy. I have been running my own business for 30 years, it is so sad to see how they tried to solve their problems with growth and merging with other businesses.
When they started to loose money, big money, they started merging with other package travel companies, getting even bigger, even harder to turn around.
When a business is going in red numbers rule number one is get rid of anything you loose money on, to get the numbers into black. I would not blame it on the CEO, it must the the board of management, they are in charge.
Luckily the Norwegian, highly profitable, separate Thomas Cook corporation VING got access to flights starting today, so that they can get money and sales from their profitable part, but I do still wonder what they had in their mind, with such crazy bank loans. Certainly not getting money from Boris and the UK government!?