Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves has told former Thomas Cook bosses they should accept some responsibility for the spectacular collapse of the 178-year-old travel firm.
Three former bosses of the travel company were grilled by MPs on the Business Select Committee, which is investigating the collapse that cost thousands of jobs and left 150,000 holiday makers stranded overseas.
On Wednesday, October 23, the committee called Manny Fontenla-Novoa, who was chief executive of the firm from 2003 to 2011, his successor Harriet Green, who ran the company from 2012 to 2014 and Bill Scott, who was chief financial officer in 2018, to give evidence.
Ms Green said she inherited a "significant wall of debt - £1.6bn - and three profit warnings" from her predecessor in 2012 and Mr Scott said "the UK business wasn't making any money" at that time but it "improved significantly" over the next six years.
Peter Fankhauser, the most recent chief executive, has also blamed debt as a contributing factor to the collapse.
Mr Scott told the committee a "once-in-a-generation heatwave" in the UK was partly to blame for the Thomas Cook's failure, as it resulted in a drop in holiday bookings and "a sudden and sharp decline in profitability from around about June 2018".
Ms Reeves, chair of the committee, said: "We don't have Tui or Jet2 or other companies finding themselves in the position that Thomas Cook have found themselves in and they, as far as I'm aware, suffered from the same factors. "
She added: “The problem is everyone we’ve seen from Thomas Cook have blamed everybody apart from themselves. They never look at themselves and the decisions they've made.
"So it’s the volcanic ash, it’s the hot weather in the UK, it’s the depreciation of sterling, it’s the debts acquired to someone else.
“It would be really, really good for someone from Thomas Cook to say to your customers and your suppliers and your employees, some of whom are sitting here today ‘We got it wrong and I wish I could go back and do something different. I wish we had disposed of some assets. I wish we hadn’t bought MyTravel. I wish we had made different decisions’ – rather than just passing the buck to someone else.”
Last week, Mr Fankhauser was grilled about a bonus payment of £500,000. He apologised for the collapse and said he worked "tirelessly" for Thomas Cook, which went into liquidation on September 23 after 178 years of operating.
But Ms Reeves said his apologies "ring rather hollow" when he wasn't willing to contribute to the cost of repatriating 150,000 holiday makers, which was incurred by the UK taxpayer.
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