Thomas Cook getting sevco'd

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Rowan said:

Yup sorry I misread that as he was going in January. My point till stands though, he chose to pay the £6k rather than wait until insurance etc paid out and rebook for later date.

You got 99% of it right, he's a twat. 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Looks like the black hole in TC's balance sheet was nearly £3 billion. Absolutely criminal if true.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thomas-cook-failed-with-balance-sheet-deficit-of-over-3-1bn-szxxn2593

[peasy23]

Looks like the black hole in TC's balance sheet was nearly £3 billion. Absolutely criminal if true.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thomas-cook-failed-with-balance-sheet-deficit-of-over-3-1bn-szxxn2593

You would think there has to be a criminal investigation. I know a large part of it was a paper loss because they had to devalue one of the companies they absorbed, but how the f**k can the directors be getting huge bonuses when they were losing millions year after year?

[peasy23]

Heard on the radio that the hotels are covered by ATOL, to the tune of £330 million. [emoji33]

One Mexican hotel is apparently due £2.5 million.

[Granny Danger]

On 25/09/2019 at 19:33, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Looks like the black hole in TC's balance sheet was nearly £3 billion. Absolutely criminal if true.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thomas-cook-failed-with-balance-sheet-deficit-of-over-3-1bn-szxxn2593

This goes beyond Thomas Cook.  There is absolutely no interest by the Tories, LibDems or the right wing elements in Labour to hold company directors to account for this sort of thing.  

Anyway, our flight home under the ‘repatriation’ is identical to the scheduled one.  Just have to make our own way to the airport.

[Qos91]

This goes beyond Thomas Cook.  There is absolutely no interest by the Tories, LibDems or the right wing elements in Labour to hold company directors to account for this sort of thing.  
Anyway, our flight home under the ‘repatriation’ is identical to the scheduled one.  Just have to make our own way to the airport.

Good luck. Our flight was meant to be the same as the original flight too. We got to the check in desk for glasgow and were eventually told, after about half an hour, we had been offloaded to the manchester flight.

[Granny Danger]

1 minute ago, Qos91 said:

2 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

This goes beyond Thomas Cook.  There is absolutely no interest by the Tories, LibDems or the right wing elements in Labour to hold company directors to account for this sort of thing.  
Anyway, our flight home under the ‘repatriation’ is identical to the scheduled one.  Just have to make our own way to the airport.

Good luck. Our flight was meant to be the same as the original flight too. We got to the check in desk for glasgow and were eventually told, after about half an hour, we had been offloaded to the manchester flight.

Christ that’s worrying. Where were you flying back from?

[Cerberus]

The Government doesn't cares about Thomas Cook because the passengers are working class jakes. If it was British Airways in trouble then the Government would be all  over it.

The TC passengers look like they'd fit right in on the horrific club photos thread.

 

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Cerberus

[harry94]

13 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

This goes beyond Thomas Cook.  There is absolutely no interest by the Tories, LibDems or the right wing elements in Labour to hold company directors to account for this sort of thing.  

Anyway, our flight home under the ‘repatriation’ is identical to the scheduled one.  Just have to make our own way to the airport.

The thing is with these things though is that it is that a lot of big companies do get unfair advantages. If you look at the liabilities being discussed there, a considerable amount will be to the tax payer in embodied costs. The whole competition law thing is bullshit, there are thousands of small ways it's abused.

I think 'draining the swamp'^TM needs to start with people actually being recruited by the government who actually have an ability to give substantive oversight of the economy - both on the tax side and assessing how the government confronts businesses who require support in the form of licenses etc (like the CAA) but are clearly taking the piss and in huge trouble.

The whole company directors earning obscene amounts of money is a correct argument but I sometimes feel that it's quite a hard thing to address and the emotive argument clouds the point. It's human nature to push the boundaries etc and any reasonable bit of legislation is going to be untangled within a few hours and more or less see people unscathed IMO. It's got to have proper resources committed to staying on top of it and it's got to be firmly in spending to try and hinder a future government from abusing it and dismantling it.

It was interesting to see Cameron in the first part of his documentary piece on BBC try to claim a success in fighting tax avoidance and having big businesses accountable, would be fascinated to hear his working on that (I suspect it's likely some bullshit about tax receipts going up with inflation tbh).

[Qos91]

Christ that’s worrying. Where were you flying back from?

Larnaca last wednesday. Apparently there were around 50 of us. After talking to the other passengers, they all had different names to their friends/partners, so I assume they thought they were moving single passengers onto the other flight.
Not sure how often this has happened though, but I read on the first day of the rearranged flight, passengers bound for glasgow from paphos were diverted to gatwick, so I suppose it could have been worse for us.

[Jason King]

Woman at my work was sent back to Manchester and then bussed to Glasgow.

[Savage Henry]

Woman at my work was sent back to Manchester and then bussed to Glasgow.

Could’ve been you. Thoughts and prayers.

[Jason King]

I know, I had to take a long weekend off to recover.

Thinking of all the work colleagues out there who have had to put up with a never ending stream of "I cannae believe they went bust when we woz on wur holidays", "a bus from Manchester, raging so I was by the way" and "can I claim for that?" from those that have just got back from a Thomas Cook holiday.

[the jambo-rocker]

6 hours ago, Jason King said:

Woman at my work was sent back to Manchester and then bussed to Glasgow.

This did happen to me on the Friday. The extra 4 hours on bus wasn't preferred, but in the grand scheme of things could have been a lot worse.

Not ideal, but nothing that really could have been done. A big shout to the people in the CAA. There were plenty of them, all sympathetic, patient and all around good c***s.

[welshbairn]

12 minutes ago, the jambo-rocker said:

This did happen to me on the Friday. The extra 4 hours on bus wasn't preferred, but in the grand scheme of things could have been a lot worse.

Not ideal, but nothing that really could have been done. A big shout to the people in the CAA. There were plenty of them, all sympathetic, patient and all around good c***s.

Did you get the option of getting dropped off in Glasgow or was it straight to the Airport? I was well impressed they had the website up and running and flights already sorted for the first day. They must have been pretty sure TC were going tits up when they did because it must have been planned and committed to well before, in terms of chartering planes and sending them around the world. 

Edited October 2, 2019 by welshbairn

[the jambo-rocker]

Just now, welshbairn said:

Did you get the option of getting dropped off in Glasgow or was it straight to the Airport?

Straight to Glasgow airport, which was just as well considering our car was parked at the Normandy. I'm pretty sure if we'd asked the guy, he could have dropped off a few somewhere close to the centre on the way as he seemed flexible enough, but nobody piped up.

The guy taking us back to the Normandy said on the Thursday, about 30 people getting ready to go on holiday had to get back in their cars and drive back home as there was no flights and hence no holiday for them. Now that must have been a sore one.

[alta-pete]

Did you get the option of getting dropped off in Glasgow or was it straight to the Airport? I was well impressed they had the website up and running and flights already sorted for the first day. They must have been pretty sure TC were going tits up when they did because it must have been planned and committed to well before, in terms of chartering planes and sending them around the world. 

Read a fascinating story in The Sunday Times about how they had put the airline together in complete secrecy- clearly if the Government is openly contemplating them folding, all confidence is lost and the game is then very definitely a bogey.

That article is behind a paywall but The Guardian version here:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/23/how-secret-plans-saved-customers-of-thomas-cook-from-being-stranded

[peasy23]

Read a fascinating story in The Sunday Times about how they had put the airline together in complete secrecy- clearly if the Government is openly contemplating them folding, all confidence is lost and the game is then very definitely a bogey.

That article is behind a paywall but The Guardian version here:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/23/how-secret-plans-saved-customers-of-thomas-cook-from-being-stranded

Mentioned it last week, Thomas Cook announced at 2am UK time on the Monday morning they had gone tits up. My in laws were getting ready to board a replacement Miami Air International plane to come home from Zakynthos less than 9 hours later. It was obviously planned well in advance.

[welshbairn]

I bet some c***s in the know bought future options at 1p and sold them at the few days before price of 5p and made a fortune. Pretending I know how it works here but something like that anyway. c***s.

[Dindeleux]

On 23/09/2019 at 14:40, supermik said:

Going on holibobs  

@Div