Thomas Cook Shuts Down

When it comes down to is, the failure of Thomas Cook comes down to a single thing, the inability to have any kind of forward looking strategy and ability to adapt to changes.

This story has been told at least dozens of times now in the last two decades in particular and ever time it is some combination of a scapegoat excuse and ... of course, climate change done done it! ... when in reality it was an utter failure of leadership to not notice the shifting enemies on the battlefield or being able to adapt to those changes ...

Sears/Kmart, WalMart (even though they are trying), all the book stores (even though B&N is putting up a good fight), ToysRUS, Taxi services, etc.; even, arguably, the whole US economy that is now realizing that "holy shit, maybe we shouldn't have bet the farm and slaughtered that golden goose so the ruling class or fools could get rich quick by selling their own people out to China/India.

They are all cautionary tails of hubris ... nothing more, nothing less ... regardless of how little people want to learn from them.

It's a mandatory insurance program run by the UK government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Travel_Organisers'_Licensi...

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth too, but at least that's taxpayer money going directly back to the taxpayer.

It’s a government issue specifically in this case because the government operates a mandatory fund that travel agencies pay into which covers the cost of repatriation efforts if the travel agency collapses, and in the bigger picture because having thousands of citizens stranded abroad with potentially no financial means to repatriate themselves is, y’know, bad.

https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Consumers/About-ATOL/

> ATOL (which stands for Air Travel Organiser’s Licence) is a UK financial protection scheme and it protects most air package holidays sold by travel businesses that are based in the UK. The scheme also applies to some flight bookings, usually those where you book flights (including UK domestic flights) but do not receive your tickets immediately.

> ATOL was first introduced in 1973, as the popularity of overseas holidays grew. After a number of high profile travel business failures left people stranded overseas the UK Government realised consumers required protection when their travel providers fell into difficulties. ATOL currently protects around 20 million holidaymakers and travellers each year.

> If a travel business with an ATOL ceases trading, the ATOL scheme protects consumers who had booked holidays with the firm. It will support consumers currently abroad and provide financial reimbursement for the cost of replacing parts of an ATOL protected package.

On one hand I agree that it shouldn't be because government should require that both, sufficient reserves exist to deliver on contracts to consumers, and that consumers always have the first priority on any kind of claims against a bankrupt company. If, as a professional firm or even investor, you invested in a company; it should be considered part of your professional duty and due diligence that you make smart decisions and suffer the consequences for your actions ... not naive consumers.

On the other hand though, in the absence of and the externalization of the costs by not holding corporations and professionals responsible for their actions, it can be argued that it falls into the common good scope of government to provide such emergency services that are generalizable across the population and from which everyone will equally benefit and therefore can also not be extracted.

There is also an argument to be made though that this has been known and Thomas Cook has been on the skids for years now, even though a layperson really can't be expected to know that when they dish out their life savings to book family vacation of a lifetime.

Again, there reckless corporations need to be held to the fire on these matters, which is EVEN MORE the responsibility of government ... the core responsibility at that ... so that it doesn't have to do these types of things because the reserves existed that would allow emergency travel or relocation or whatever is needed to meet contractual obligations.

I think it's tenuous at best to assume an airline closing will result in less total air travel.

Only if you assume that Thomas Cook customers will not just switch to one of the very many other oversubsidized airlines for their travel consumption.

Assuming the people who would have flown on that airline won't chose another option. Seems like a big (and incorrect) assumption.

Not at all and I can't imagine "climate change activists" seeing it in that light (and really, we should all be activists at this point). More likely, the demand for traveling will remain unchanged but suppliers will.

Fantastic news? I would rather concentrate on the other 96.5%

"The IPCC has estimated that aviation is responsible for around 3.5 percent of anthropogenic climate change".

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...)

Is that the climate change activists that fly private planes around the world to exotic hot locations where new facilities were built with fully air-conditioned spaces where they eat $10,000 steaks while lecturing the commoners about eating meat and climate change?

I think the airline part of their business was pretty minor, only a few aircraft, and they were considering selling it anyway. It's not really a story about an airline shutting down.

I wonder how many of Europe's super cheap airlines are losing money.

If more fail there might be a domino effect as so many places have come to rely on tourism.

Such as?

> They abruptly shut down overnight

Everyone knew this was coming for months.

> Why not do a gracefull shutdown...???

Why would creditors allow their money to be used for that?

They would not be able to pay their bills for fuel labor etc. In most countries, if the airline collapses your just SOL.

European bankruptcy law doesn't allow them to do a graceful shutdown. The company is forced to stop operations.

That's the major difference between American and European bankruptcies.

> Now the government has to pay 150 million to bring them home.

Part of that will be paid from the Air Travel Trust Fund: https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Air-travel-trust/About...