Sunday marked the last day of “Operation Matterhorn” - the emergency repatriation of Thomas Cook customers after the tour firm’s collapse left 150,000 people stranded abroad.
A total of 4,800 people returned on 24 flights yesterday, with the final flight of the operation - a service from Orlando, Florida, to Manchester - due to land this morning.
The massive operation was the UK's largest ever peacetime repatriation programme, and was launched by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which involved roughly 700 flights over two weeks to complete the job.
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"In the first 13 days we have made arrangements for around 140,000 passengers to return to the UK and we are pleased that 94% of holidaymakers have arrived home on the day of their original departure,” said Richard Moriarty, chief executive at the CAA.
The CAA said it would now turn its attention to the 360,000 bookings cancelled when Britain's oldest travel company went under. Customers who purchased package holidays through the operator - the majority of its sales - should be covered by the Air Travel Organiser's Licence scheme (Atol), and will be refunded as a result.
The 178-year-old company failed to secure the last-ditch creditor deal for £3bn of debt that it needed to keep flying in the early hours of 23 September, and the CAA launched “Operation Matterhorn” hours afterwards.
Around 9,000 people have lost their jobs as a result of the company's liquidation.
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The Daily Telegraph reveals details of a confidential report, seen by Thomas Cook’s management days before the company caved, that depicted how its failure would impact countless other businesses across the travel sector, in the UK and beyond.
“Many suppliers could expect to recoup just 3.4p in every pound owed to them. Bondholders, whose debts totalled more than £1bn, may only recover 2.3p,” the paper reports. “The Thomas Cook brand, once one of the oldest and most revered names in the travel industry, was worth as little as £1.3m, the report by advisers AlixPartners found.”
“The gloomy predictions come as the bill to European taxpayers of Thomas Cook’s collapse could soon swell to more than £1bn... Britain’s bill – to fly customers home and fund redundancy pay – is already estimated at £160m.”
AlixPartners are now handling the liquidation of the company, alongside accounting consultancy KPMG.
“British Transport Minister Grant Shapps has said the government will try to recoup some of the costs of the repatriation, both from third parties such as insurers and from the failed company’s assets,” Reuters reports.
“An inquiry has been launched by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, with MPs focussing on directors' stewardship of the company,” says the BBC. “And the Financial Reporting Council, the accounting watchdog, is to investigate the auditing of the company.”
Last week, Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary revealed he was skeptical about the future of packaged holidays. “It’s screwed, it’s over,” he said. O’Leary also criticised the CAA for awarding Thomas Cook a year-long “fit to fly” license months before its collapse.
