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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Business
Kate Lyons (earlier) and Graeme Wearden (now)

Thomas Cook travel chaos: firm's collapse leaves 150,000 stranded abroad – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. Our main story is here.

What the papers say

And finally, here come the rest of the UK front pages, with Thomas Cook stories front and centre.

The Guardian highlights the claim that UK ministers scuppered hopes of rescuing the company (full story).

The Times leads on Boris Johnson’s criticism of the company’s top management, who picked up chunky pay cheques in recent years.

The Mirror also scents a new Fat Cat scandal -- angry that Thomas Cook’s top brass are heading into the sunset with millions of pounds.

The Daily Mail is equally angry:

The Telegraph also finds space for Thomas Cook -- flagging up the prospect of a public inquiry into its demise.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading and commenting -- and good luck if you’re stuck abroad, trying to reschedule a holiday, or facing unemployment because of Thomas Cook’s collapse. Goodnight! GW

Attention, Thomas Cook staff: Virgin Airways is looking to hire you.

The airline is keen to hear from cabin crew, following Thomas Cook’s collapse, although it’s not clear how many roles are actually available yet.

Virgin says:

“We have a set up a specific recruitment path to support any Thomas Cook Cabin Crew after the sad announcement that the company has ceased operations.

“If you are committed to the highest professional standards and delivering for our customers then we’d love to talk to you.”

UK ministers accused of sealing Thomas Cook's fate

The UK government is being accused of sealing Thomas Cook’s fate by not providing financial support, even though Turkey and Spain were prepared to help.

Once the government’s lack of confidence in Thomas Cook leaked out, one source says, support in Spain and Turkey for the precariously-constructed deal “melted away”.

“Two governments were prepared to back a British brand, the UK government wasn’t,” said the source. “Without that, there wasn’t enough confidence around the table to make it work.”

Here’s the full story:

The Mexican leg of the repatriation programme is continuing:

Tourists arrive at the airport of the recreation center of Cancun, to take their flight back to their home country through the tourist company Thomas Cook, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico
Tourists arrive at the airport of the recreation center of Cancun, to take their flight back to their home country through the tourist company Thomas Cook, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico Photograph: Lourdes Cruz/EPA

I suspect the Thomas Cook crisis will make the front page of most UK national newspapers tomorrow.

The Independent and the Metro have already set the trend:

In an editorial tonight, The Guardian argues that the government was right to resist Thomas Cook’s call for a £250m lifeline.

Why? Because the holiday firm’s problems run pretty deep! Here’s a flavour:

It is far from clear that the bailout of up to £250m that the company requested, and ministers refused, would have avoided all this. Thomas Cook almost went bust in 2011 and is colossally in debt due to decisions taken by management teams dating back to its merger with MyTravel in 2007.

The 2018 heatwave, which led to reduced bookings, combined with the weakness of sterling and concerns about Brexit, pushed it over the edge. And while a consultation with the workforce, as proposed by Labour’s John McDonnell, would indeed have been preferable to the shock and disruption of the last 24 hours, there was a risk that even the bailout would not have been enough.

With the cost of the operation to bring stranded tourists home and pay Thomas Cook’s bills expected to far exceed the initial estimate of £100m, the risk of pouring public money into the company, only to see it fail anyway, was that taxpayers would have been landed with two bills instead of one.

Pressure is mounting on Thomas Cook’s current, and past, management tonight.

Andrea Leadsom, Britain’s business secretary, got the ball rolling this morning by asking the Insolvency Service to launch an investigation into the company’s demise.

Labour’s John McDonnell then propelled the pay issue into the spotlight, by calling for bonuses to be returned.

Now Boris Johnson has weighed in, as the FT explains:

Chief executives at Thomas Cook took home £18.7m worth in pay in the past 10 years, according to FT calculations from annual reports, with the current CEO Peter Fankhauser earning about £8.5m in his near five-year tenure.

Prime minister Boris Johnson said in New York on Monday night: “I have questions for one about whether it’s right that the directors, or whoever, the board, should pay themselves large sums when businesses can go down the tubes like that.”

Stranded passengers waiting near the closed Thomas Cook check-in desk at the International Airport in Cancun, Mexico, today.
Stranded passengers waiting near the closed Thomas Cook check-in desk at the International Airport in Cancun, Mexico, today. Photograph: Elizabeth Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images

City speculators found two ways to profit from Thomas Cook’s downfall.

One group shorted its shares in recent months - banking profits as the value of the equity shrank to nothing.

The second (as flagged earlier) took out insurance on its bonds. Those credit-default swaps (CDS) are expected to pay out some $250m, or £200m - or roughly the funding shortfall that brought Thomas Cook down.

On the other hand, people who bought Thomas Cook’s shares and bonds have lost out (as have whichever banks or insurers took the other side of the CDS contracts).

This is helpful too:

If you’re struggling to understand how a venerable brand like Thomas Cook can suddenly collapse, look no further than this explainer.

Here’s a flavour:

Why did Thomas Cook fail after 178 years in business? The immediate answer is that it was unable to secure a £200m lifeline from its bankers, including government-owned RBS.

But in truth the tour operator’s woes go back much further – a victim of a disastrous merger in 2007, ballooning debts and the internet revolution in holiday booking. Add in Brexit uncertainty, and it was perhaps only a matter of time before the giant of the industry collapsed.

In May, the group reported a £1.5bn loss, with more than £1bn written off from the 2007 merger with MyTravel – better known for its brands Airtours and Going Places.

That deal was supposed to create a European giant, promising £75m-a-year cost savings and a springboard to challenge emerging internet rivals. In reality Thomas Cook was merging with a company that had only made a profit once in the previous six years, and the deal saddled the group with huge debts....

Big queues formed at Damalan Airport earlier today, as holidaymakers in Turkey tried to get home.

British passengers queue up in a check-in service at Dalaman Airport after Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel firm, collapsed stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the globe and sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history, in Dalaman, Turkey, September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
British passengers queue up in a check-in service at Dalaman Airport. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters
British passengers queue up in a check-in service at Dalaman Airport after Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel firm, collapsed stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the globe and sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history, in Dalaman, Turkey, September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

One customer reports that Thomas Cook staff are still toiling away, helping people despite not being paid.

Football, rugby and cricket fans who bought package deals through Thomas Cook face disruption following the company’s collapse.

Sarah Butler has the details:

Sports fans who bought tickets for major football matches and England’s winter cricket tour to South Africa are among those who could be affected by the collapse of Thomas Cook.

Thomas Cook Sport, a specialist division of the fallen tour operator, provided tickets and accommodation for some of the UK’s biggest football clubs, including Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham. It also sold packages for rugby, the NFL, Formula One and darts, including the world championship in December.

Scottish rugby fans who bought early for the Six Nations tournament next year are also likely to be affected as the national team had a partnership with Thomas Cook.

Scores of Thomas Cook planes are now parked on the tarmac at Manchester Airport in Manchester.
Scores of Thomas Cook planes are now parked on the tarmac at Manchester Airport in Manchester. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Manchester offers help to Thomas Cook staff

Officials in the Greater Manchester region are scrambling to help Thomas Cook staff tonight.

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham visited Manchester Airport - a key hub for the company - today to speak to workers.

And a new website has been created to provide support to people who have lost their jobs, and to help them find vacancies. It’s here: https://gmthomascook.com/ or you could email info@gmthomascook.com.

Around 3,000 people were working for Thomas Cook in Greater Manchester, with more than 900 cabin crew helping 2.8 million travellers through Manchester Airport each year, a tenth of the airport’s passenger numbers.

Burnham says:

“My heart goes out to all those affected by the collapse of Thomas Cook. I have been at the airport today meeting staff representatives and I know this news has hit them very hard, leaving them without a job and in many cases three weeks’ pay.

“But we need to give people more than just warm words, which is why we have been working hard today to put in place practical support. The Greater Manchester family has been swift to respond and it’s good that a website and contact telephone number have been established where staff can log on, register and access practical support and information when it comes to next steps.”

Our colleague in Mexico, Jo Tuckman, reports that the first Thomas Cook repatriation flight is due to leave Cancún for Gatwick via Manchester at 15:55 Mexican time (or 21.55 BST).

Another one is due to depart for Manchester at 17:05 local time, bringing another planeload of holidaymakers home.

Thomas Cook staff donate passenger collection to charity

Here’s a touching story.

We’ve just heard that the flight to return Thomas Cook passengers from Mahón airport,Menorca, to Bristol has just touched down.

During the journey, passengers organised a collection for staff - raising £125 in sterling,€220 in euros and a mountain of loose change.

Enough for a “damn good do”, as one passenger put it as she announced the total. “The crew were great,” another passenger tells us.

But the staff aren’t taking it to the nearest pub. Instead, they say they’ll donate it to charity - one that is helping the sick child of a ground crew member.

The collapse of Thomas Cook today has cast a huge cloud of worry over one of its hotels, half an hour’s drive southwest of Palma airport.

Our colleague Sam Jones is there, and reports:

Since early Monday morning, according to guests at the Sentido Cala Viñas hotel, there had been only one topic of conversation over the breakfast table and around the pool.

“My son texted me this morning and asked me how I was going to get home,” said Ole Søyland, a 61-year-old Norwegian who was staying at the hotel with his wife.

“I thought he was asking who was going to drive us back home from the airport, but then I looked in the Norwegian papers and saw what was going on.”

Thomas Cook, he added, were giving guests “absolutely nothing” when it came to information and were not responding to his texts.

“I asked the receptionist about it but she said that Scandinavia wasn’t affected, but of course we’re all involved. I hope we get some information on Wednesday, otherwise we’ll have to start looking at our options.”

Søyland was also wondering whether he would need to get his prescription filled in Spain.
A British couple from Burton-on-Trent, who did not wish to be named, said they had been loyal to Thomas Cook for years and were sad to see it collapse. But they were far from happy about the company’s failure to update customers. They said:

“All the information we’re getting is off the telly.

It’s the old people who are staying here that we feel sorry for. It’s not very nice for them and they’re worried about it. You could just tell the atmosphere was different this morning.”

Updated

There’s been a big political row over Thomas Cook today.

The government insists it was right not to intervene and risk taxpapers’ money, while and Labour and the unions criticised its refusal to help save thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of holidays.

Here’s the details:

Here’s our news story about the passengers who should have been heading on holiday today:

Reminder: if you’re caught up in Thomas Cook’s collapse, the Civil Aviation Authority has a website with information.

Greek cabinet meets to discuss Thomas Cook crisis

Passengers wait for their flights inside the Ioannis Kapodistrias International Airport in Corfu, Greece today
Passengers wait for their flights inside the Ioannis Kapodistrias International Airport in Corfu, Greece today Photograph: STRINGER/Reuters

Over in Greece urgent measures to deal with the financial fallout of Thomas Cook’s liquidation are being discussed at a cabinet meeting attended by the national economy and tourism ministers.

The meeting, which also includes prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ top aide in charge of coordinating government policy, will focus on expediting repatriation of stranded tourists and relief measures for businesses worst hit by the company’s collapse.

The conservative government has hinted that tax cuts might be in the offing.
Grigoris Tasios, who heads the Hellenic Hoteliers’ Association, told the Guardian this afternoon that the country’s tourism sector had been hit by losses of around 300 million euro “and that’s an initial estimate and rather conservative.” “We’re talking about an economic disaster,” he said warning there would be legal action.

“The company hasn’t paid hotels or anyone here for the last three months. Who is going to cover such losses? The British government? From my experience that never happens. It’s going to be a huge problem and the big players won’t sit idle. Court action will be pursued.

Thomas Cook customer Vivienne Cameron is at Lanzarote Airport, and reports that British Embassy staff have arrived to help.

There’s a long queue already, so they should be busy.

Lanzarote Airport
Lanzarote Airport Photograph: Vivienne Cameron

Thomas Cook crisis is big "Brexit bankruptcy" news in Germany

Thomas Cook is also dominating the headlines in Germany, not least because the bankruptcy affects an estimated 140,000 German customers who are currently on holidays booked via five German subsidiaries of Thomas Cook, the largest of which is Neckermann.
Condor, the main German subsidiary, which flies German Thomas Cook customers to their destinations has reached out to the German government this morning, requesting a bridging loan of 200 million Euros this morning, but insists it’s not in trouble it just needs liquidity at a difficult time.

The government has yet to announce whether it will grant the loan. Whether it survives the current crisis or not, Condor - which has been up for sale for some time - is now said to be more vulnerable to a takeover by Lufthansa, which had so far turned down offers to buy the company arguing the asking price was too high.

There’s much discussion here about the UK government having to step in to bring the customers home. In Germany customers are covered for such eventualities by an insurance policy which repatriates them in case of a company going bankrupt, though the limit that will be paid out is €110m, which in a case of this scale would probably be inadequate.

There is speculation that Thomas Cook GmbH, the umbrella for the German subsidiaries, could be forced into bancruptcy, though that is considered unlikely. However industry observers are in agreement that is is appalling news for its reputation and could have a nasty knock on effect, with people likely to want to avoid the Thomas Cook brand in the near future out of fear they too will see their holidays go up in smoke. As a result, shares in the main rival, TUI, shot up by 10% this morning. Shares in airlines also went up, explained by traders as reaction to the fact that Thomas Cooks’ demise has taken capacity out of the market. Lufthansa shares were up by 1.8%.

The media here are meanwhile referring to this quite openly as “the first Brexit bankruptcy’, put down in part to people putting off booking holidays to Europe due to huge uncertainty, and to the fall in the pound. There is speculation over the British government’s decision to insist on referring to the repatriation mission as “the biggest peace-time operation of its kind”, with at least one commentator suggesting it is trying to pose as a saviour to divert from the Brexit chaos.

In one ‘obituary’ of Thomas Cook on the radio this morning there was a wry remark about how it had started as a company offering excursions for the abstinent “which is obviously not the case today when you observe Britons on holiday”, the commentator said.

In a kind touch, Peterborough United football team are inviting Thomas Cook workers to attend this weekend’s home game for free.

That’s a nice gesture to the 1,000 workers at its Peterborough HQ who got the grim news this morning.

The clubs says:

The football club and Thomas Cook have enjoyed a long-standing relationship since the travel business moved its headquarters to the city in 1977 with Thomas Cook sponsoring our shirts and the South Stand for a prolonged period in the ‘90s.

Thomas Cook employees must visit the Ticket Office at the Weston Homes Stadium and provide proof of employment to secure their free match ticket. Additional tickets for the children of those affected are also available for a nominal fee.

Peterborough are playing AFC Wimbledon: both teams need the points after a tough start to the season, so it could be a lively game.

A woman carries a box through the carpark outside the Peterborough headquarters of tour operator Thomas Cook
A woman carries a box through the carpark outside the Peterborough headquarters of tour operator Thomas Cook Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

The town of Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire, is reeling from the collapse of Thomas Cook.

The holiday firm employed 1,000 people at its Lynch Wood headquarters in Peterborough, who now face losing their jobs.

Staff have been leaving the HQ today, after hearing it has gone into liquidation.

Travel Firm Thomas Cook Ceases Trading, Canceling Flights And HolidaysPETERBOROUGH, UNITED KINGDOM - SEPTEMBER 23: Workers leave the Thomas Cook Headquarters on September 23, 2019 in Peterborough, United Kingdom. The collapse of the 178-year-old travel firm triggered a massive repatriation effort, as the British Civil Aviation Authority chartered aircraft to bring around 150,000 travelers back to the UK. The firm’s closure also jeopardized 22,000 jobs worldwide, including 9,000 in the UK. (Photo by Darren Staples/Getty Images)

According to Sky News, some staff have been told they won’t be paid at the end of the month unless they contact the insolvency service.

YouGov have conducted a snap poll today, which found that a majority (54%) of people think the government was right not to step in and save Thomas Cook.

Nearly a quarter (22%) think Boris Johnson should have intervened, with the rest not sure.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) reckon the company would have still collapsed, even if it had received more help.

One Thomas Cook holiday maker has described emotional scenes on his flight home to Gatwick airport during the early hours of Monday morning.

Charity worker Joe Jeness, 34, and his partner Gaynor were on one of the last scheduled flights from Lanzarote to London when the Captain announced over the tannoy system that the travel company had gone into receivership.

“It was really sad.” Jeness said, responding to our callout to readers today.

“I asked one of the air hostesses if she was ok and she replied “Such is life.”

He said that the plane crew remained stoic and and professional during the flight.

“It was a very bumpy flight and one woman was really upset and she was attended to by one of the cabin crew. It was amazing how caring she was considering the circumstances.”

He added:

“After we touched down though the crew were visibly upset. One of the air hostesses had tears in her eyes when we got off the plane and we saw others hugging each other.

“The Captain came and stood at the exit with the crew and every passenger who got off the plane wished them well. It was heartbreaking.”

A long queue of British passengers on Thomas Cook holidays has formed at Antalya airport, in Turkey:

British passengers with Thomas Cook wait in queue at Antalya airport in Antalya, Turkey
British passengers with Thomas Cook wait in queue at Antalya airport in Antalya, Turkey Photograph: AP
British passengers with Thomas Cook wait in queue at Antalya airport in Antalya, Turkey, Monday Sept. 23, 2019. Hundreds of thousands of travellers were stranded across the world Monday after British tour company Thomas Cook collapsed, immediately halting almost all its flights and hotel services and laying off all its employees. According to reports Monday morning some 21,000 Thomas Cook travellers were stranded in Turkey alone.(IHA via AP)

British passengers waiting for news on cancelled Thomas Cook flights at Palma de Mallorca airport today.
British passengers waiting for news on cancelled Thomas Cook flights at Palma de Mallorca airport today. Photograph: Francisco Ubilla/AP

Spanish airport operator AENA says that 46 flights operated by Thomas Cook have been disrupted today, mostly in the Spanish Balearic and Canary archipelagos.

This is the way Thomas Cook’s world ends, with a shutter descending at its branch in Finaghy, Belfast.

Another wedding is facing ruin -- and bizarrely the groom-to-be is one Thomas Cook....

The Nottingham Post has the details:

A devastated groom who shares the same name as the failed holiday company Thomas Cook has been left “shattered” after his wedding in Rhodes looks unlikely to go ahead.

Thomas, 29, and his partner Amelia Binch, 27, from Hucknall, are stuck in Rhodes in Greece after booking the dream getaway and wedding package with Thomas Cook.

They flew out on September 18 and are due to marry at the Lindos Princess hotel on September 27.

Guests are due to fly out with Thomas Cook over the coming days, including the best man.

But the couple have been told the wedding might not go ahead, as the Thomas Cook package included the wedding ceremony, flowers, cake, decorations and entertainment.

More here.....

Good news. We’ve just heard that most of the delayed flights from Mahón, in Menorca, to the UK have now departed.

The Bristol flight is still delayed, but has a departure time now.

Our ears on the ground say that Thomas Cook staff have arrived to help, even though they’re not being paid any more. A credit to the company.

Mahon Airport
Mahón Airport Photograph: x

Updated

Here’s a video clip of some Thomas Cook passengers returning home today, and wishing the company “good luck”.

And here’s a tribute from a pilot, with some impressive video clips from the cockpit.

Summary

Time for a quick recap

Britain’s biggest repatriation effort since the second world war is underway, following the collapse of Thomas Cook in the early hours of this morning.

Some 600,000 passengers are affected, with 150,000 UK citizens stranded abroad. The Civil Aviation Authority has organised a squadron of planes from other operators to bring people home -- but transport secretary Grant Shapps has warned the operation may not go smoothly.

The CAA’s head, Dame Deirdre Hutton, has pledged;

“Every single person will be brought back home at the end of their holiday.

Everyone will be brought home free of charge.”

The government says:

“For flights back to the UK, it doesn’t matter whether customers are ATOL protected or not, or what their nationality is.

Everyone on a Thomas Cook holiday with a return flight to the UK within the two weeks will be brought home.”

But....passengers are facing delays at airports across Europe, and beyond.

Thomas Cook’s check-ins at UK airports are silent, apart from a few customers trying desperately to rebook.

... just like shares in rival operators such as TUI (up 6% today).

Experts have predicted that Thomas Cook’s demise will allow surviving rivals to push prices up.

Several weddings have also been disrupted, with one couple having to stump up thousands of pounds to get to Kos in time.

The government has defended its decision not to give Thomas Cook a £250m bailout, arguing that it would create a ‘morale hazard’. But in Germany, Thomas Cook’s own airline, Condor, is seeking financial aid to keep flying.

The Labour Party is urging the government to step in, and pressing Thomas Cook’s bosses to return their bonuses.

Unions have also criticised the government for not doing more.

But the crisis is good news for one group -- hedge funds who bet on Thomas Cook’s collapse. They could win £250m through credit default swaps.

Please get in touch if you’ve been affected by Thomas Cook’s collapse.

Updated

Here’s Sam Jones’s report from Palma airport:

Back in Tunisia, Simon Speakman Cordall has heard that a flight to repatriate Thomas Cook customers left from Enfidha Airport today.

However, there wasn’t room for “upwards of 30 people” who are now being bussed back to Harramet. They’ll need to return tomorrow for another flight.

Tunisian hoteliers are busy too, including Hichem Hedda, general manager of the Steigenberger Marhaba Thalasso, who’s been up since 4am.

They received a written commitment from TSS, (Thomas Cook’s Tunisian agents) around half an hour ago that they would meet all costs incurred so far. That has now gone to the owner for signature.

Around 25-30% of the Steigenberger’s business comes through Thomas Cook. However, Hichem is confident others will fill the gap.

The hotel has traded since before the Sousse attack in 2015, but was looking forward to the return of British tourists. “This market is very important for us,” he said.

Tunisian hotel manager Hichem Hedda
Tunisian hotel manager Hichem Hedda Photograph: Simon Speakman Cordall

Updated

Thomas Cook’s collapse is going to create even more empty shops on the UK’s high streets.

According to Estates Gazette, Thomas Cook’s 588-store estate across the UK adds up to c.855,000 sq ft of retail, with the company still operating a (surprising) visible presence.

The total retail space vacated since 2018 now over 20m square feet, apparently.....

Gatwick customers unhappy about Thomas Cook's collapse

Officials talk with passengers at the Thomas Cook Check-In desks at the South Terminal of London Gatwick Airpor.
Officials talk with passengers at the Thomas Cook Check-In desks at the South Terminal of London Gatwick Airport. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Passengers scheduled to fly out with Thomas Cook today still turned up at Gatwick airport, with several saying they had been unaware of the company’s collapse until they were on their way or upon arrival at the airport.
Ruth Caruana, 48, came to the deserted Thomas Cook desk with her husband and daughter to enquire about her flight back home to Malta. “I tried to check in last night, but they wouldn’t let me,” Caruana said. At the airport, she was told by a stand-in Tui member of staff that she would have to attempt to rebook with another airline.

Caruana told us:

“We booked three weeks ago and paid about €700.

We‘ve been scammed, if they knew they were going to close down they shouldn’t have let us buy the tickets. We have nowhere to stay now. I will now try to get another flight, I hope the insurance will cover it,“

John Bell and his family also approached the Thomas Cook desk to get information about their flight to Dalaman, Turkey, for a two-week holiday, which puts their return flights outside the two-week period in which stranded passengers with booked plane tickets will be offered an airlift home by the government.
“We found out at half three this morning,” Bell said.

“We booked through Love Holidays, and used a credit card, so hopefully that’ll give us some protection. Everything is getting booked up real fast now, so we don’t know when or if we will be going.”

Bell said he thought it was possible Brexit had something to do with the downfall of Thomas Cook.

“Then again, their troubles have been going on for years.”

Friends Judy and Sheila were scheduled to fly out for a 7-day holiday in Antalya and found out about the collapse of the holiday giant when they arrived at Gatwick airport, where they were handed a printed information letter by Thomas Cook.
Like many others, they had booked a package via a third party operator, Broadway Travel, a mere two weeks ago, which included flights with Thomas Cook. “We even have our boarding passes for our flight that is now not going to happen,“ Sheila said.

“We were told to try and rebook, our travel operator said we should pay for new tickets and would then get reimbursed, but I‘m sure any extras like transfers we‘ll have to pay for will leave us out of pocket.“

The friends were able to rebook tickets for a flight just before 10pm with another airline, for a small fortune they said, and were told by their travel operator they would be refunded for the original cost of the Thomas Cook flights.

“I asked, ‘what about the additional cost?’, but they haven’t said anything about that,” Judy said.

“All I want to do is lie down,” Sheila added.

By midday, only a handful of travellers were queued at the customer service desk to rebook their flights.

Carita Kuivamaki, 27 and Niklas Koski, 26, both from Finland but living in Malta, found out on their journey to the airport that their flights home had been scrapped. They had come to London for a company business trip.

“We heard about it on the train,” Koski said. Kuivamaki said they spotted the story of the collapse in a newspaper, adding:

We‘ll book flights for tomorrow.

Updated

Wedding plans disrupted

There are many sad tales of customers whose holiday plans have been ruined by Thomas Cook’s collapse -- but having a wedding disrupted must be a particularly bitter blow.

That’s what happened to Layton Roche and Natalie Wells, most unfortunately. They are due to get married on Friday in Kos, Greece, in a wedding they have been planning for years. But they and almost 50 guests booked through Thomas Cook.

Kate explains:

Roche and Wells, who have been together for seven years, engaged for five and have two children together, spent “months and months” researching “to find the perfect place that caters for everyone”.

On Monday morning they were up early, getting ready to catch a taxi they had booked for 3am to take them to Manchester airport in time for their 6am flight, when they heard the devastating news: Thomas Cook had gone under, and their flights and those of their guests were cancelled.

“A couple of years of planning and a whole lot of money has gone down the drain,” said Roche, a civil engineer. “Dreams have been crushed.”

Some of their family members, including Roche’s dad and one of their children, were already in Kos waiting for them, and so the couple scrambled to find tickets for other flights bound for the island.

They will make it to Greece and their wedding can go ahead, at the cost of £4,000 for last-minute tickets. This means that perhaps only 15 of their nearly 50 guests will be able to make it, due to the expense....

More here:

Updated

Passengers on one Thomas Cook flight organised a collection for their cabin crew, Sky News reports, after they learned of the company’s collapse.

Here’s the story.

Updated

MANCHESTER, 23 September 2019 - The deserted Thomas Cook Airline check-in desks at Manchester Airport’s terminal one on Monday morning after Thomas Cook went into liquidation after last-ditch talks failed to provide £200m in new funding for the stricken travel company, placing 9,000 jobs at risk in Britain alone and triggering the biggest peacetime repatriation effort to help 150,000 stranded holidaymakers. The Civil Aviation Authority announced at 2am that the company, the world’s oldest travel firm, had ceased trading and that all related flights and bookings had been cancelled. Christopher Thomond for The Guardian.
\the deserted Thomas Cook Airline check-in desks at Manchester Airport’s terminal one today Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
MANCHESTER, 23 September 2019 - The deserted Thomas Cook Airline check-in desks at Manchester Airport’s terminal one on Monday morning after Thomas Cook went into liquidation after last-ditch talks failed to provide £200m in new funding for the stricken travel company, placing 9,000 jobs at risk in Britain alone and triggering the biggest peacetime repatriation effort to help 150,000 stranded holidaymakers. The Civil Aviation Authority announced at 2am that the company, the world’s oldest travel firm, had ceased trading and that all related flights and bookings had been cancelled. Christopher Thomond for The Guardian.

People line up in front of a counter of Thomas Cook at the Heraklion airport on the island of Crete, Greece.
People line up in front of a counter of Thomas Cook at the Heraklion airport on the island of Crete, Greece. Photograph: Stefanos Rapanis/Reuters

Over in Greece where 50,000 Thomas Cook clients are stranded, the first flights are en route to repatriate passengers holidaying on the islands of Zakynthos, Corfu and Kos.

The country’s tourism minister Haris Theoharis, who has set up an operational centre to coordinate repatriation efforts, says he expects 22,000 passengers to be returned home over the next three days. The ministry is working closely with the British embassy in Athens with the repatriations thought to be overseen by Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Attempting to allay fears in a country whose economy is almost entirely dependent on tourism, the minister said hotel costs and other relevant expenses had been covered for Thomas Cook clients. The Greek tourism ministry was working very closely with the national economy ministry and other bodies to support the vast number of Greek companies affected by the British tour operator’s collapse.

The vast majority of those marooned in Greece are said to be in Crete. But across the country, especially in the Sporades where 75 % of current hotel guests are British, tourism officials are speaking of the company’s collapse as a catastrophe for already hard hit Greek companies.

Alekos Eustathiou, who heads the Union of Hoteliers on Skiathos in the Sporades and represents Thomas Cook, said:

“It’s a huge economic blow to tourism … it’s estimated that there are about 1,800 to 2,000 Britons on our islands. Right now the economic damage is impossible to estimate.”

In Manchester, passengers face higher prices and confusion

An information notice at Manchester Airport
An information notice at Manchester Airport Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

Stranded passengers booked to fly on cancelled Thomas Cook flights from Manchester Airport have complained that prices to fly on other airlines are mounting.

Aside from the handful of stranded passengers frantically trying to book other flights, the former Thomas Cook check in desks at Terminal one stood eerily silent, empty of staff or queues, with the branding removed.

Wedding planner Catalena Fernandes had been due to fly home to Cancun, Mexico this morning. She had been travelling around the UK for two weeks and has two weddings scheduled for this week.

“I was looking for information but my flight wasn’t ATOL protected so I cannot claim for a return flight. I can just ask for my money back, but flights [on other airlines] are very expensive right now. I don’t know why my flight wasn’t ATOL-protected. Like any normal person, I booked it, and thought it would be okay.”

She added,

“I am searching for other flights but I needed to be there today. I don’t know what I’ll do. It is a difficult situation.”

Kristina Terwilliger was only supposed to be in transit to Manchester but had been stranded for four hours. She had flown from Glasgow, with a flight booked to JFK to visit family on Condor Airlines, a subsidiary owned by Thomas Cook.

Last night, the airline said it would continue operations, but Terwilliger arrived in transit to find her flight cancelled.

“They let me through and sent my bag to JFK, it was on the way and they had to get it back. I’ve talked to Condor, there’s no way to get through to Thomas Cook. There’s nothing, no contact with Thomas Cook, no money back.

She added:

“It’s just that getting a flight out of here is just hard in general and prices are just going up and up. Everyone is trying to get out of here.”

Sidney Matias is trying to get home to Orlando after a holiday in the UK. He said:

“I’ve had no information - I bought an extra bag yesterday, which they charged me for, so I woke up this morning and I came to the airport, I didn’t know they were going to be cancelled. The only information is these guys gave me a piece of paper so I’m going to have to buy another flight”.

Jerome Sinclair, who works for luxury fashion brand Burberry, was also booked to fly to New York on Condor for work. He said:

“I know there had been things on the news, I’d been on holiday the week before so I’d not been following it that closely but I’d not had a phone call or email. My flight was Condor so I was just hoping it would still be running.”

“When I arrived at security, my boarding card flashed up to seek assistance. So now I’ve got to try to get to New York today from somewhere but the train station is closed.”

Bloomberg: Hedge funds to cash in

While the taxpaper faces a £100m bill to get Thomas Cook’s customers home, investors who bet on the firm’s collapse could enjoy a payday.

Bloomberg reports that hedge funds who bet against Thomas Cook’s bonds are in line for a £250m windfall -- exactly the amount which the government declined to pump into the firm.

They’ll profit through credit default swaps - insurance that pays out when a company fails to repay its bonds.

Bloomberg says:

Not everyone lost out with the collapse of 178-year-old Thomas Cook Group Plc that put 21,000 jobs at risk and left travelers around the world stranded.

Speculators including Sona Asset Management and XAIA Investment GmbH stand to earn as much as $250 million from the bankruptcy.

They invested in derivatives that pay out when a company defaults. The fate of those securities was at the heart of the battle over whether Thomas Cook lived or died.

Passengers of British travel group Thomas Cook wait at Son Sant Joan airport in Palma de Mallorca
Passengers of British travel group Thomas Cook wait at Son Sant Joan airport in Palma de Mallorca Photograph: Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images

Bethany Main, 22, from Newcastle is travelling with her partner Rachel Usher 26 and her eight year old son.

They have been at Palma airport, Majorca since 08.30 this morning.

Describing the scenes there she said:

“It’s absolutely heaving.”

“I think there are more than 1000 people here.

Our flight has been delayed from just after 1000 this morning till 1940 tonight and it’s been redirected to Manchester and we don’t know how we’re going to get home from there.”

“We’ve been told we can’t leave the airport. The Atol desk has given us cups of water but that’s all so far.

There are more people coming in all the time ... it’s getting crowded and some people are asleep on the floor.”

Reminder: You can get in touch if you’ve been affected.

Thameslink, which runs rail services to Luton and Gatwick Airports, is offering support to Thomas Cook customers who no longer need tickets, or miss their train home.

The latest from Tunisia

The swimming pool at the Sentido Phonecia, Tunisia
The swimming pool at the Sentido Phenicia , Tunisia Photograph: Simon Speakman Cordall

Over in Tunisia, customers and Thomas Cook staff are facing up to the disruption together.

Journalist Simon Speakman Cordall is at the Sentido Phenicia hotel, on the beach at Hammamet -- the town where some customers were barracaded into their rooms yesterday.

All the managers are in a meeting; reception say there are 140 British guests at the hotel. But despite yesterday’s drama (at the Orangers hotel some distance away), all is calm in the Sentido Phenicia’s lobby.

Simon reports that :

Until this morning Riadh Saidani was a Thomas Cook rep. He and others are now helping guests find flights.

He doesn’t know if he will he paid, but left the hotel to distribute homemade flyers with the CAA phone number on it to other hotels.

“There are about 200 Thomas Cook guests here, around 1,000 in Hammamet,” Saidani explained.

Simon also talked to Sue McMahoe and Douggie Weston, (79) from Dudley.

Both voted to leave in the 2016 EU referendum, and are dismissive of Thomas Cook blaming Brexit for its weak trading.

Sue tells us:

“We’ve been going to Tunisia since 1998”

Douggie adds:

“We come for the weather and the people mainly.

“It’s just such a shame that It’s been Thomas Cook. They’ve been so good over the years”

Neither are very good with computers. However, the former reps here have confirmed their flight and they will leave tomorrow. They have a further holiday, to Egypt, booked through Thomas Cook for the new year and are confident they’ll be reimbursed.

Back at Mahón, Menorca, there’s little sign of progress for stranded passengers at the airport.

The departure hall is packed with tourists hoping to head back to the UK, but their flights to Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Bristol are all delayed.

Mahon Airport in Menorca, after Thomas Cook collapsed
Mahon Airport today Photograph: None

People are being stoic, we hear, but as you can see the check-in desks are besieged.

Updated

A petition to “Save Thomas Cook” was the fastest-growing petition on Change.org over the weekend, and is still getting signatures today (68,535 at present).

It was created by the husband of a Thomas Cook employee, and calls on the government, or another lender, to provide financial help to guarantee a bright future for the firm. It’s online here.

Turkey tells hotels not to evict Thomas Cook customers.

Turkey’s ministry of culture and tourism has issued a stern warning to hotels in the country not to kick Thomas Cook customers out, or demand money from them.

The ministry is also promising financial help to hotels, though a “credit loan package”.

Flight websites are warning of steep price hikes to come following Thomas Cook’s collapse.

Routes from Manchester, and to the Caribbean, are most likely to be affected, although the impact may take a while to hit.

Jack Sheldon of Jack’s Flight Club said:

“We’ve not seen any immediate increases in fares today.

In my experience, when a particular route ceases to operate prices do indeed increase substantially, but this generally occurs over a matter of weeks and months. I expect it will be similar in this case as the additional demand will increase prices on other carriers

Apart from easyJet and Ryanair, we expect you’ll see increases on long-haul routes to many Caribbean destination from London and even more so from Manchester, where Thomas Cook was quite dominant, in terms of direct routes to many holiday destinations.

We expect Virgin Atlantic to benefit on a number of routes from Manchester (Bridgetown, Orlando, New York), while British Airways will pick up most of the long-haul demand out of Gatwick.”

Video: Thomas Cook customers react

Here’s a video clip of some of the holidaymakers caught up in today’s travel chaos.

Some face long delays, and a tricky journey home, while others are unhappy about the (lack of) information from Thomas Cook.

Crete is also bracing for heavy financial losses:

Speaking of Cyprus... its deputy ministry for tourism has said that up to 15,000 holidaymakers are stranded on the Mediterranean island.

Savvas Perdios reckons Cypriot hotels could lose €50m which is owned by Thomas Cook, warning:

“I don’t think that it will be easy to recoup that money.”

Thomas Cook had been bringing 250,000 people to Cyprus each year - or 6% of the total tourist trade.

Perdios added (via Reuters):

“We will work intensively..

I believe that a large portion of the arrivals we stand to lose will somehow be regulated by the market and other travel agencies.”

One Thomas Cook customer has revealed that her plans to fly out to Cyprus to get married are now in tatters:

Ditto Manchester:

Thomas Cook’s spot at Birmingham Airport is deserted this morning, as customers get the message to stay away.

Over in Crete, Thomas Cook holidaymakers have formed a long queue at Heraklion airport, to find out how they’ll get home.

People line up in front of a counter of Thomas Cook at the Heraklion airport on the island of Crete, Greece September 23, 2019 REUTERS/Stefanos Rapanis
Heraklion Airport today Photograph: Stefanos Rapanis/Reuters

As well as its UK customers, hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers from other countries are affected by Thomas Cook’s collapse.

It says that there are currently 140,000 people currently travelling with its German subsidiaries, which include Neckermann and Öger Tours.

They must turn to their insurance companies for help to get home, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports.

Updated

The head of Turkey’s Hoteliers Federation has warned that Thomas Cook owes money to small hotels in the country (and across the world too).

He also fears its collapse could mean up to 700,000 fewer tourists visit Turkey each year, Reuters reports.

Thomas Cook’s last ever flight touched down at Manchester Airport a little while ago, Sky News reports:

The New York Times’s Matina Stevis-Gridneff fears Greece’s tourism economy will be rocked by Thomas Cook’s collapse:

Thomas Cook staff in tears over company's collapse

Passengers of British travel group Thomas Cook queuing at Son Sant Joan airport in Palma de Mallorca today.
Passengers of British travel group Thomas Cook queuing at Son Sant Joan airport in Palma de Mallorca today. Photograph: Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images

Our man at Palma Airport, Sam Jones, reports that Thomas Cook customers are still waiting to learn how they’ll get home.

Despite the heavy presence of Thomas Cook staff and teams from ATOL and the FCO, information and updates are in short supply, he says.

Natasha Brown from Newcastle came out to Mallorca for a week to celebrate a friend’s birthday. She and her friends should have been flying back to Newcastle at 10.50am this morning but are still waiting.

“They’ve not got any information on the Newcastle flight,” she said.

“ATOL have no information but some people are saying it could now be at 9pm.”

But Brown remained philosophical:

“At least we had a good week’s holiday. We’re going to get compensation and there are worse places to be stuck.”

She said she had heard nothing from Thomas Cook and had been worried that the hotel might try to get guests to pay the bills owed by Thomas Cook. Having heard how guests had been locked in a hotel in Tunisia until they paid up, she and her friends had taken precautions.

“We didn’t check out until the transfer came this morning because we didn’t what happened in Tunisia to happen to us.”

Brown also said she has been moved by the grace shown by some Thomas Cook staff.

“The two reps on the coach thanked us all for the holidays we’d taken with Thomas Cook. And then they started to cry.”

The opposition Labour Party is urging the government to step in, even at this late stage, to rescue Thomas Cook:

Rebecca Long Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, says:

“Thanks to the government’s failure to act, staff employed by Thomas Cook may face redundancy while holiday makers risk being left stranded overseas.

“The government must stop its recklessness and step in to avert this crisis by taking an equity stake”.

On the “stranded overseas” point, both the CAA and the Department for Transport insist that holidaymakers will be brought home.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps did warn that it won’t be “entirely smooth sailing”.....

Condor, Thomas Cook’s German airline subsidiary, is seeking financial aid from Berlin to keep it operating.

AFP has the details:

Underlining that it had been “profitable for many years,” the airline added that “to prevent liquidity bottlenecks at Condor, it has applied for a state-guaranteed bridging loan” which is being examined in Berlin.

“We’re continuing to concentrate on what we do best: flying our guests safely and punctually to their holidays,” said managing director Ralf Teckentrup.

Thomas Cook’s German arm told news agency DPA that around 140,000 German tourists are currently on holiday with the travel group and its subsidiaries.

Around 21,000 had been scheduled for departure on Monday and Tuesday, the company added.

A reminder of happier days:

Share your experiences with us

We’d like to hear from people who are currently abroad and have travelled with Thomas Cook. We’re also interested in hearing from workers at the tour company.

You can share your experiences in the form here and can also share your stories and photos with the Guardian via WhatsApp by adding the contact +44(0)7867825056.

Only the Guardian will see your responses and we will include some of them in our ongoing coverage.

British Government officials at Son Sant Joan airport in Palma de Mallorca this morning, helping with the biggest UK repatriation since the second world war
British Government officials at Son Sant Joan airport in Palma de Mallorca this morning, helping with the biggest UK repatriation since the second world war Photograph: Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images

Thomas Cook’s collapse is also bad news for the companies it worked with across the globe.

They face the loss of future business, plus the risk of unpaid bills today.

Turkey’s tourism ministry says it will create a loan support package for companies facing financial pain.

There are more than 21,000 Thomas Cook customers in Turkey today, it adds (via Reuters).

Passengers leaving a Thomas Cook plane at Manchester Airport this morning
Passengers leaving a Thomas Cook plane at Manchester Airport this morning Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

There’s no room for sentiment in the City over Thomas Cook’s demise.

Shares in other travel and holiday companies are rallying this morning. TUI has jumped 7% to the top of the FTSE 100. EasyJet has gained 6%.

Traders are obviously calculating that Thomas Cook’s rivals can now hoover up its customers, and potentially push their prices up (as there’s one less competitor to worry about).

Dame Deirdre Hutton, the chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, has confirmed that all Thomas Cook customers will be brought home at the end of their holiday.

He also blamed the company’s failure to embrace modern technology for its collapse:

Dame Deirdre told the Today programme:

“Thomas Cook is operating on brochures whereas everyone else has moved on to barcodes.”

“Every single person will be brought back home at the end of their holiday.

Everyone will be brought home free of charge.”

She added that it is “desperately sad to see it [Thomas Cook] go and my heart goes out to the 9,000 people who lost their jobs.”

Updated

Government: Flight-only customers will be helped too

Some confusion exists over whether non-Atol protected passengers - mainly flight only - would be brought home.

Although normally passengers who are not ATOL-protected would be asked to find and pay for their own way home, the Department for Transport has said it will assist all impacted passengers abroad.

It said:

“For flights back to the UK, it doesn’t matter whether customers are ATOL protected or not, or what their nationality is.

Everyone on a Thomas Cook holiday with a return flight to the UK within the two weeks will be brought home.”

The rescue flights will only operate for the next two weeks - any passengers abroad with flights home beyond that date will have to arrange their own travel.

Back at Palma Airport, more than a dozen staff from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office wearing hi-vis vests have arrived to help people get home.

But the wait goes on.

Our correspondent Sam Jones has the latest:

Apart from being a bit annoyed by the absence of anywhere to park his luggage for what promises to be a long wait, John Marszol is reasonably philosophical.

He and his partner Donna where due to take the 10.30 flight home to Glasgow, but the flight has now been pushed back to twenty to eight this evening and will land in Manchester. A transfer to Glasgow is then promised....

The couple had decided to take matters into their own hands at 7am this morning and checked out of the hotel and got a taxi to the airport.

“When I checked this morning, it said the flight was going to leave for Birmingham at 10.30,” said John.

“The ATOL lassie said it’s going to fly into Manchester now and I’ve got no information on the transfer. We need to know. I’d didn’t bring my driving licence so we can’t hire a car at Manchester to drive home.”

He said there had been nothing from Thomas Cook - “you just get directed to the CAA website.”

The pair were digging in for a long day at the end of what had been a lovely week away.

“The holiday was great until this,” said John, adding:

“Although it was too hot for someone from Scotland.”

With nowhere to go, the couple’s thoughts had turned to who would feed their three cats - and to holidays to come.

As John puts it:

“At least in the future we won’t be able to book with Thomas Cook.”

Some travellers face long bus journeys to return to their original destination once their flight lands back in the UK.

For example, the CAA says that passengers booked into a Thomas Cook flight from Palma to Gatwick tomorrow at 11am will instead be flown to Manchester then bussed to Gatwick.

That’s a likely journey of around four and a half hours - not a great end to anyone’s holiday.

There’s more information here.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has also told Sky News that the government “should have intervened” to save Thomas Cook, given the number of jobs at stake and consumers involved.

He said that the firm had already once been publicly owned.

It would have been best to “step in, stabilise the situation, and allow some breathing space” to turn operations round and protect jobs and consumers.

Here’s some reaction to his comments this morning:

McDonnell: Thomas Cook bosses should repay bonuses

John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor, says Thomas Cook’s bosses should examine their consciences and repay their bonuses.

He’s on Radio 4’s Today programme now, arguing that the government should have stepped in following the “management failure” at Thomas Cook.

McDonnell says that he would have intervened to help, if he was chancellor, due to the threat to people’s holidays and the 13,000 jobs at risk.

Q: But the company wanted a £250m bailout- isn’t that throwing good money after bad?

McDonnell questions whether £250m would actually needed - the key point is the government should have stepped in to help, with “strings attached”.

Q: Should the company’s bosses repay their bonuses?

“Too right”, says McDonnell enthusiastically. If they were bankers, we could claw their bonuses back (through legislation brought in after the financial crisis).

They really need to examine their own consciences about how they’ve brought this situation about, he adds firmly.

The Civil Aviation Authority tell us it had chartered 40 aircraft and taken seats on other airlines to bring holidaymakers home, from carriers including British Airways and Virgin.

The BBC estimates that the CAA will have brought at least 14,000 people home by the end of today.

A Thomas Cook customer in Mahón, the capital of Menorca, tells us they were due to fly back to Bristol this morning - but the flight was cancelled.

But the CAA are on the case - they were at the airport by 7am to help passengers.

Our customer has now been been told they will be coming back today in a chartered Titan flight -- six hours late.

The CAA are “playing a blinder”, they say, being very efficient at handling the situation.

Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, has warned that some Thomas Cook customers may struggle to get their money back:

For those who’d booked future trips, ATOL and ABTA schemes should mean full refunds, but some, especially those who booked flights only, may be unprotected. Travel insurance won’t help for most, as travel company failure cover is rarely included as standard – though check your policy or give them a call.

“If you did book without travel industry or insurance protection, the next route is your card provider. Those who paid more than £100 on a credit card get Section 75 legal protection – which means the card firm is jointly liable with the retailer, so you can get your money back from it. However this may not work if you booked via an agency, or via certain PayPal transactions, as that break in the direct transactional relationship can stop it working – we wait to see how widespread that problem will be.

“If that happens, or you paid by debit card, instead ask your bank to do a ‘chargeback’. This isn’t a legal protection – it is a Visa, Mastercard and Amex rule where your bank gets your money back from Thomas Cook’s bank as you didn’t receive what you paid for. It should work for most people. Those who paid by other methods such as cheques or cash have very little protection sadly.”

A grounded airplane with the Thomas Cook livery is seen at Manchester Airport, Manchester, Britain September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Phil Noble
A grounded Thomas Cook plane at Manchester Airport this morning Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

In Mallorca, passengers queue to get home

Passengers talk to Civil Aviation Authority employees at Mallorca Airpor.
Passengers talk to Civil Aviation Authority employees at Mallorca Airpor. Photograph: Enrique Calvo/Reuters

The Guardian’s Madrid correspondent, Sam Jones, is at Palma airport in Mallorca.

He writes:
That most sacred of British stereotypes is much in evidence at Palma airport, where Thomas Cook passengers are queueing for their flights quietly, politely and stoically.

ATOL staff in tabards are wielding clipboards are negotiating the fallout from the travel firm’s collapse and fielding questions from worried customers.

Although many holiday-makers feared the worst when they woke up this morning, those booked on the 10.35am to Birmingham seem to be in luck. The flight is scheduled to take off on time and passengers are waiting to check in as normal.

“It was all OK until we woke up this morning and found out what had happened,” said Wendy Hiscocks from South Wales.

“But we’d checked in before we got here. It’s been fine: the transfer turned up and so did the rep.”

As long as she could get home, she added, things didn’t seem too bad.

“What can you do? And it such a shame for the poor people who’ve lost their jobs.”

A little further along the check-in queue were Mr and Mrs Perrins from Walsall.

“The flight’s at 25 to 11 so we’ve still got a couple of hours to go,” said Mr Perrins.

“They told us what was happening as soon as they knew.”

He and his wife were also thinking of the thousands of jobs that look set to go as the travel giant folds.

“You’ve got to feel sorry for them, haven’t you?” he added.
Michael and Rebecca O’Donnell, from Birmingham, had also woken up to the bad news.

“I looked it up on the website when I woke up but it’s been fine,” he said.

“I’ve checked the flight and everything seems normal.”

He said he and his wife had followed developments online but hadn’t had any email from Thomas Cook.

Other passengers flying back to the UK from Palma face more disruption.

  • The 10.30 to Glasgow will take off five minutes late and land at Birmingham, where people will be offered transfers to Glasgow.
  • The 10.50 to Newcastle not take off until 19.40, and will fly into Manchester. Transfers to Newcastle will be provided.
  • The 11.20 to East Midlands will now leave at 15.20.
  • The 10.40 to Manchester has been delayed until 19.40

Here are some photos from Mallorca Airport, where Civil Aviation Association staff are explaining the situation to Thomas Cook holidaymakers:

Passengers talk to Civil Aviation Authority employees at Mallorca Airport as an announcement is expected on the Thomas Cook’s tour operator, in Palma de MallorcaPassengers talk to Civil Aviation Authority employees at Mallorca Airport as an announcement is expected on the Thomas Cook’s attempts to secure 200 million pounds in extra funding to reach agreement over its recapitalisation and secure its future, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Enrique Calvo
Passengers talk to Civil Aviation Authority employees at Mallorca Airport.
Passengers talk to Civil Aviation Authority employees at Mallorca Airport. Photograph: Enrique Calvo/Reuters

The Thomas Cook check-in desks at Gatwick Airport in Sussex are closed, with a stark warning that all flights are now cancelled:

Closed check-in desks at Gatwick Airport in Sussex as 178-year-old tour operator Thomas Cook has ceased trading with immediate effect after failing in a final bid to secure a rescue package from creditor

The airline industry is scrambling to assist with Operation Matterhorn - the huge operation to get Thomas Cook customers home.

For example Easyjet says it is providing a plane:

We are sorry to see the news about Thomas Cook and appreciate the anxiety that their customers will be facing now.

“easyJet is working with the CAA to provide a fully crewed A320 aircraft to support the repatriation efforts over the coming days.

Balpa, the pilots union, is pretty scathing about Thomas Cook’s collapse, saying staff have been “stabbed in the back”.

Balpa says:

“The hopes of all Thomas Cook employees that their airline could survive has been brutally quashed this morning as they wake up to find they have no job.

“While detailed plans to repatriate passengers have been carefully put together and Ministers have and will continue to claim the credit for that, the staff have been stabbed in the back without a second’s thought.

“Despite continuing to keep Thomas Cook going in recent weeks with dignity and integrity while their own futures were being secretly decided we don’t even know if staff will get a pay cheque this month. It is despicable. Thomas Cook pilots and all staff deserve better than this.

“For pilots, BALPA will be supporting our members through the legal complexities of what Thomas Cook liquidation means for them and doing everything we can to help them find alternative jobs in other airlines.”

Adam French, Which? Consumer Rights Expert, has some advice for customers caught up in the Thomas Cook collapse:

“Hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers affected by the collapse of Thomas Cook will be incredibly worried, especially if they are currently still on holiday and stranded abroad. The good news is that ATOL protection will mean they will be flown back home free of charge.

“Customers who have already paid and booked for an upcoming holiday with the collapsed travel operator should also be entitled to a refund as part of the scheme.

“However, if you didn’t book as part of a package you might not be ATOL protected but you may be able to claim the cost back through your travel insurance or credit card issuer - it will depend on your circumstances. You can visit which.co.uk for more advice on your rights.”

Thomas Cook’s collapse comes four months after it warned that Brexit uncertainty was hurting its business.

In May, the company told the City that customers had been postponing their holiday plans, saying:

There is now little doubt that the Brexit process has led many UK customers to delay their holiday plans for this summer.”

The slump in the value of the pound since the 2016 referendum won’t have helped either, as it makes foreign holidays more expensive.

Political science professor Simon Hix says this was a critical factor:

Our colleague Rob Davies has written about how Thomas Cook’s lenders pushed it over the edge by demanding an extra £200m of funding:

Just three weeks ago, the tour operator looked to have secured a £900m rescue package – half provided by Chinese tourism business Fosun, the rest by a mixture of banks and hedge funds. The debt-for-equity swap would wipe out of £1.7bn of loans, allowing the company to make its interest payments during the barren winter, when less cash comes in because bookings are low.

Then, in what one person familiar with the talks described as a bolt from the blue, came a shock demand from its banks, state-owned RBS chief among them. Thomas Cook must find an extra £200m, they said, or the restructuring could not go ahead.

Updated

The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has tweeted:

The union representing Thomas Cook’s high street and office staff have blamed the government for allowing the company to collapse.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes argues that liquidation could have been avoided -- and could have been cheaper than having to pick up the pieces.

Cortes says:

Administration need not have happened – the Government had been given ample opportunity to step in and help Thomas Cook but has instead chosen ideological dogma over saving thousands of jobs.

“That they would rather hang our members out to dry instead of rescuing Thomas Cook is shameful and wrongheaded.

“There remains the question of repatriating 150,000 British holidaymakers and the cost to the public purse of doing so. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know it would have been cheaper and more cost effective to save what is a cornerstone of the British high street.

“Our union is still urgently seeking meetings with Government to discuss exactly what happens next and will not give up the fight for jobs. But clearly Tory Ministers should hang their heads in shame over their inaction.”

The departure boards at UK airports are splattered with red “Cancelled” signs this morning, denoting Thomas Cook flights that won’t take off today.

Here’s a clip of Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook’s chief executive, confirming the “devastating news” that the official receiver has now taken control of the holiday firm:

Thomas Cook’s fate was sealed after its banks demanded an extra £200m of funding to tide it over the winter period.

That proved a stretch too far for the company, which was already trying to raise £900m through a rescue deal.

Those banks included Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group – both bailed out by the taxpayer a decade ago (an option denied to Thomas Cook).

Those lenders have now issued a statement, claiming they have been “extremely supportive”:

“Unfortunately, and notwithstanding the efforts of all stakeholders, the £1.1bn funding requirement to adequately recapitalise Thomas Cook has ultimately proved too significant. The Lenders providing finance facilities to the Group have been extremely supportive stakeholders, including through two periods of financial distress and have stood behind Thomas Cook over the past twelve months, a period where the Group saw cash outflows of about £1bn, maintaining that position over the crucial and busy summer holiday period.

“Obviously, the Lenders are deeply disappointed that it has not proved possible to rescue Thomas Cook. In partnership with other stakeholders, the Lenders worked tirelessly to examine all options within the timeframe required.”

Updated

Good morning from London. Why did Thomas Cook fall into insolvency today?
The sad truth, according to industry experts, is that it didn’t keep up with changing times. Tim Jeans, the former boss of Monarch Airlines (which collapsed two years ago), told Radio 5 Live that Thomas Cook’s model of “flying people from airports across the UK to concrete hotels by the sea” doesn’t really work any more.

“People don’t want to fly and flop”, Jeans argues. They want experiences instead, but Thomas Cook’s 2019 travel brochures looked like those from 1999.

Thomas Cook also owned its own planes, which is handy in high season, but means you have high fixed costs all year round.

But clearly plenty of people do still enjoy escaping to, say, Mykonos, Marrakesh or Malta, which is why a huge repatriation effort is now underway to get holidaymakers back home.

I’m going to hand over to my colleague Graeme Wearden now. Thanks for following along through the early hours.

A few reports have come through that Thomas Cook staff were not notified by the company of the trouble that the company was in. One said he found out the company had gone bust by reading media reports today. Another, whose family member worked for Thomas Cook, said the company had been telling staff up until yesterday that reports of financial distress had been inflated by the press.

If you know more, please get in touch: kate.lyons@theguardian.com

Summary

  • The UK Civil Aviation Authority announced at about 2am that Thomas Cook Group has ceased trading with immediate effect, with all flights and holidays cancelled.

  • Peter Fankhauser, the chief executive of Thomas Cook, said the tour operator’s
    collapse was a “matter of profound regret” as he apologised to the company’s
    “millions of customers, and thousands of employees”.

  • The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the government had asked it to launch a repatriation programme over the next two weeks, starting on Monday and running to Sunday 6 October, to bring Thomas Cook customers back to the UK.

  • Dozens of charter planes have been brought in from as far afield as Malaysia to assist with the mass airlift.

  • Transport secretary Grant Shapps said all customers currently abroad with Thomas Cook who are booked to return to the UK over the next two weeks will be brought home as close as possible to their booked return date, in “the biggest peacetime repatriation in UK history” and asked for patience from travellers as the returns were sorted out.

  • On the plane to New York for the UN General Assembly, Boris Johnson said that in the wake of the collapse of the budget airlines Monarch, and now of Thomas Cook, it was time to “reflect on whether the directors of these companies are properly incentivised to sort such matters out”.

  • The Civil Aviation Authority has instructed customers who are currently overseas not to travel to the airport until their flight back to the UK has been confirmed on the dedicated website. Thomas Cook customers in the UK yet to travel should not go to the airport as all flights leaving the UK have been cancelled.
  • The CAA has launched a website dedicated to providing information for travellers who are stuck. There is also a phone number for people to call. Overseas number: +44 1753 330 330 and UK freephone: 0300 303 2800

  • Business secretary Andrea Leadsom said she would write to the Insolvency Service to ask them to “fast-track” their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Thomas Cook going into liquidation.

Boris Johnson asks whether 'the directors of these companies are properly incentivised to sort such matters out'

Peter Walker who is travelling with the prime minister to the United Nations General Assembly in New York has filed this report on Boris Johnson’s comments about the Thomas Cook crash:

Boris Johnson has promised a comprehensive government response to assist any Thomas Cook customers stranded by the collapse of the firm, and hinted at possible government action against directors of travel firms who oversee bankruptcies.

The prime minister said that in the wake of the collapse of the budget airlines Monarch, and now of Thomas Cook, it was time to “reflect on whether the directors of these companies are properly incentivised to sort such matters out”.

Speaking to reporters on his plane heading to the UN general assembly in New York, Johnson said it did not seem the government could have done more to help, for example agreeing to Thomas Cook’s request for a £150m bailout.

“It is a very difficult situation, and obviously our thoughts are very much with the customers of Thomas Cook, the holidaymakers, who may now face difficulties getting home,” he said. “We will do our level best to get them home. There will be plans ready to deal with that if it is necessary.”

On the request for government funding, he said: “Clearly, that’s a lot of taxpayers’ money and sets up, as people will appreciate, a moral hazard in the case of future such commercial difficulties that companies face.

“I do think that we need to look at ways in which tour operators, one way or another, can protect themselves from such bankruptcies in future. And clearly the systems that we have in place to make sure that companies like Monarch or Thomas Cook don’t in the end come to the taxpayer for help, one way or the other, the state will have to step in to help stranded holidaymakers.

“One’s driven the reflect on whether the directors of these companies are properly incentivised to sort such matters out.”

Updated

The Civil Aviation Authority website, to which the CAA is directing customers affected by the Thomas Cook collapse, is now working. It’s been glitching since it launched. It offers advice about what to do for those people who are stranded abroad or had flights booked out of the UK through Thomas Cook.

Here’s a taste of what they’re advising:

Customers already abroad

If you are currently abroad and your flight was with Thomas Cook we are providing new flights to return you to the UK. These repatriation flights will only be operating for the next two weeks (until 6 October 2019). After this date you will have to make your own travel arrangements. From a small number of locations, passengers will have to book their own return flights.

Customers yet to travel out of the UK

We are sorry to inform you that all future holidays and flights booked with Thomas Cook are cancelled as of 23 September 2019.

If you are booked on a Thomas Cook Airlines flight, please do not go to your UK airport, as your flight will not be operating. The Civil Aviation Authority’s repatriation programme will not include any outbound flights from the UK.

If you choose to book a new flight with another airline out of the UK, you will not be eligible for a repatriation flight.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it has launched Britain’s largest peacetime repatriation to bring home stranded Thomas Cook passengers. The Press Association has looked at some of the key numbers involved in the operation:

  • All of the travel company’s flights have been cancelled - that means the 105 aircraft it operates, according to its website, have been grounded.

  • There are 600,000 Thomas Cook travellers who have been left stuck overseas.

  • More than 150,000 of those are Britons.

  • The airlift is almost twice the size of the repatriation effort required when Monarch went bust in October 2017.

  • In that instance, the CAA put on 567 flights which brought almost 84,000 passengers back to the UK.

  • The final cost of the Monarch operation to taxpayers was about £50m. The Department for Transport would not put a firm figure on how much it would cost this time around but it is understood it could top £100m.

  • Dozens of charter planes have been brought in from as far afield as Malaysia to assist with the mass airlift.

  • Only holidaymakers with return flights booked within the next two weeks, between Monday and Sunday 6 October, will qualify for a free flight home, as close as possible to their original return date.

  • On Monday 30 September, one week into the repatriation process, the CAA will launch a service which will seek to process all refunds within 60 days of full information being received. Further details will be given at thomascook.caa.co.uk.

A lot of sad people who have had to cancel holidays, freaked out people wondering how they will get back from them and people expressing concern for Thomas Cook employees who may be out of work.

China’s Fosun Group ‘disappointed’ it was not able to rescue Thomas Cook from bankruptcy

China’s Fosun Group, which had led a last-ditch bid to rescue British travel firm Thomas Cook from bankruptcy, on Monday said it was “disappointed” that the effort had failed.

“Fosun is disappointed that Thomas Cook Group has not been able to find a viable solution for its proposed recapitalisation with other affiliates, core lending banks, senior noteholders and additional involved parties,” Fosun said in a statement to AFP.

“Fosun confirms that its position remained unchanged throughout the process, but unfortunately other factors have changed.”

“We extend our deepest sympathy to all those affected by this outcome.”

Thomas Cook had announced last month that Fosun, which was already the biggest shareholder, would inject £450 million ($560 million) into the business.

In return, the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate was to acquire a 75% stake in Thomas Cook’s tour operating division and 25% of its airline unit.

Fosun did not say whether it planned further efforts to rescue or acquire Thomas Cook outright.

An earlier version of its statement in reaction to the collapse said “Fosun will continue to increase investment and cooperation in the UK market.”

But it offered no details, and that line was dropped from later amended versions of its statement.

Thomas Cook in May revealed that first-half losses widened on a major write-down, caused in part by Brexit uncertainty that delayed summer holiday bookings.

Andrea Leadsom will ask Insolvency Service to ‘fast-track’ Thomas Cook investigation

Andrea Leadsom will set up a cross-government taskforce to look into the issue.
Andrea Leadsom will set up a cross-government taskforce to look into the issue. Photograph: Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Business secretary Andrea Leadsom said she would write to the Insolvency Service to ask them to “fast-track” their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Thomas Cook going into liquidation.

The investigation will also consider the conduct of the directors, the Department for Transport said.

Leadsom said: “This will be a hugely worrying time for employees of Thomas Cook, as well as their customers. Government will do all it can to support them.

“I will be setting up a cross-government taskforce to monitor local impacts, will write to insurance companies to ask them to process claims quickly, and stand ready to provide assistance and advice.

“I will also be writing to the Insolvency Service to ask them to prioritise and fast-track their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Thomas Cook going into liquidation.”

Some good news for one reader, who was due to fly back from Orlando on a Thomas Cook-booked flight today. He is still able to fly home today, thanks to Virgin Atlantic. Fingers crossed that there is more good news like this for other travellers.

'The task is enormous': Grant Shapps says all Thomas Cook passengers booked to return to UK in next two weeks will be brought home

Grant Shapps announced the government had hired dozens of charter planes to fly customers home free of charge and that accommodation would also be covered by the government.
Grant Shapps announced the government had hired dozens of charter planes to fly customers home free of charge and that accommodation would also be covered by the government. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Transport secretary Grant Shapps announced the Government and CAA has hired dozens of charter planes to fly customers home free of charge.

In a statement, the Department for Transport (DfT) said all customers currently abroad with Thomas Cook who are booked to return to the UK over the next two weeks will be brought home as close as possible to their booked return date.

Thomas Cook package holiday customers will also see the cost of their accommodation covered by the Government, through the Air Travel Trust Fund or Atol scheme, the DfT said.

Shapps said: “Thomas Cook’s collapse is very sad news for staff and holidaymakers. The Government and UK CAA is working round the clock to help people.

“Our contingency planning has helped acquire planes from across the world - some from as far away as Malaysia - and we have put hundreds of people in call centres and at airports.

“But the task is enormous, the biggest peacetime repatriation in UK history. So there are bound to be problems and delays.

“Please try to be understanding with the staff who are trying to assist in what is likely to be a very difficult time for them as well.”

Full statement from the Civil Aviation Authority:

Thomas Cook Group, including the UK tour operator and airline, has ceased trading with immediate effect. All Thomas Cook bookings, including flights and holidays, have now been cancelled. There are currently more than 150,000 Thomas Cook customers abroad, almost twice the number that were repatriated following the failure of Monarch.

We know that a company with such long-standing history ceasing trading will be very distressing for its customers and employees and our thoughts are with everyone affected by this news.

The Government has asked the UK Civil Aviation Authority to launch a repatriation programme over the next two weeks, from Monday 23 September to Sunday 6 October, to bring Thomas Cook customers back to the UK. Due to the unprecedented number of UK customers currently overseas who are affected by the situation, the Civil Aviation Authority has secured a fleet of aircraft from around the world to bring passengers back to the UK with return flights.

Passengers in a small number of destinations may return on alternative commercial flights, rather than directly through the Civil Aviation Authority’s flying programme. Details and advice for these passengers are available on the dedicated website.

The Civil Aviation Authority has launched a special website, thomascook.caa.co.uk, where affected customers can find details and information on repatriation flights, as well as advice on accommodation for both ATOL and non-ATOL customers.

Due to the significant scale of the situation, some disruption is inevitable, but the Civil Aviation Authority will endeavour to get people home as close as possible to their planned dates. This will apply to both ATOL protected passengers and those who are not protected.

Customers currently overseas should not travel to the airport until their flight back to the UK has been confirmed on the dedicated website.

Thomas Cook customers in the UK yet to travel should not go to the airport as all flights leaving the UK have been cancelled.

ATOL Protected passengers with future bookings are entitled to a full refund for their cancelled holiday. Passengers currently overseas may also make claims for the cost of replacing ATOL protected parts of their trip, or for out of pocket expenses as a result of delayed flights home. The Civil Aviation Authority will be launching a service to manage all refunds by Monday 30 September, once the flying operation has progressed. This refunds service will seek to process all refunds within 60 days of full information being received.

Further information will be available on our dedicated website in the coming days, but please do not submit anything to the Civil Aviation Authority in the meantime as the organisation continues to focus on the repatriation flying programme to return more than 150,000 passengers to the UK. More information will follow on how to make a claim.

Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said:

“News of Thomas Cook’s collapse is deeply saddening for the company’s employees and customers, and we appreciate that more than 150,000 people currently abroad will be anxious about how they will now return to the UK.

“The government has asked us to support Thomas Cook customers on what is the UK’s largest ever peacetime repatriation.

“We have launched, at very short notice, what is effectively one of the UK’s largest airlines, involving a fleet of aircraft secured from around the world. The nature and scale of the operation means that unfortunately some disruption will be inevitable. We ask customers to bear with us as we work around the clock to bring them home.

“We urge anyone affected by this news to check our dedicated website, thomascook.caa.co.uk, for advice and information.”

The UK Civil Aviation Authority will be providing regular updates as our flying programme develops.

Do not go to the airport for your Thomas Cook flight, says Civil Aviation Authority

Quite a few people tweeting in or messaging me to ask if they should still go to the airport for flights booked through Thomas Cook today.

The answer is no. All Thomas Cook flights are cancelled, British airports are starting to tweet telling people to stay home if their flight was booked through the company.

And this is from the Civil Aviation Authority:

Customers currently overseas should not travel to the airport until their flight back to the UK has been confirmed on the dedicated website [which at time of writing was still down and showing an error message, but which the CAA says will work soon, keep refreshing].

Thomas Cook customers in the UK yet to travel should not go to the airport as all flights leaving the UK have been cancelled.

https://twitter.com/STN_Airport/status/1175948298038972416?s=20

Updated

Civil Aviation Authority announces repatriation programme to bring holidaymakers home

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the government had asked it to launch a repatriation programme over the next two weeks, starting on Monday and running to Sunday 6 October, to bring Thomas Cook customers back to the UK.

The CAA statement said: “Due to the unprecedented number of UK customers currently overseas who are affected by the situation, the Civil Aviation Authority has secured a fleet of aircraft from around the world to bring passengers back to the UK with return flights.

“Passengers in a small number of destinations may return on alternative commercial flights, rather than directly through the Civil Aviation Authority’s flying programme. Details and advice for these passengers are available on the dedicated website.

“Due to the significant scale of the situation, some disruption is inevitable, but the Civil Aviation Authority will endeavour to get people home as close as possible to their planned dates. This will apply to both Atol protected passengers and those who are not protected.

“Customers currently overseas should not travel to the airport until their flight back to the UK has been confirmed on the dedicated website.

“Thomas Cook customers in the UK yet to travel should not go to the airport as all flights leaving the UK have been cancelled.”

Chief executive of Thomas Cook says collapse was 'matter of profound regret'

Peter Fankhauser, the chief executive of Thomas Cook, said the tour operator’s
collapse was a “matter of profound regret” as he apologised to the company’s
“millions of customers, and thousands of employees”.

Who to contact for help

The CAA’s website dedicated to providing information for travellers who are stuck keeps crashing, but the CAA says just to keep refreshing and it should be fixed shortly.

There is also a phone number for people to call.

Overseas number: +44 1753 330 330
UK freephone: 0300 303 2800

How do I get home? Will I get my money back? Your questions answered

I’ve had a few people tweet in with questions (please get in touch if you’re affected, share your story, pics of your situation, questions etc - kate.lyons@theguardian.com or on Twitter).

We have put together an article addressing some of these questions. There is more information in the full article, but here are some answers to the most common questions I’ve received – about how to get home and what happens to already-booked holidays.

If you are abroad on a Thomas Cook holiday, will you be flown back home?

Yes, according to the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who told the BBC that contingency planning was in place to make sure no-one would be stranded. The repatriation plan, which has been codenamed Operation Matterhorn, will involve planes chartered from other airlines including British Airways and easyJet. The operation is likely to be a mammoth challenge for the Civil Aviation Authority, on a scale significantly larger than the last major collapse, when Monarch Airlines was grounded in October 2017.

The initial advice is likely to be that holidaymakers should not make their way to the airport until notified, as flights are unlikely to be available immediately. Be prepared for possible delays, and the risk that you may be flown back to a different UK airport to the one you took off from, then bussed to your initial departure point.

However, the good news is that the Monarch rescue went relatively smoothly. Over the course of two weeks in October 2017 the CAA chartered 560 flights from 24 different airlines, and 98% of Monarch passengers were flown home on the same day they were originally booked to return.

You have a booking with Thomas Cook for a holiday next week. What happens to it?

It’s very likely you won’t be jetting off to the sun, but you will get the money back that you paid for the Thomas Cook holiday. The CAA will set out how to make a claim for a refund – go to caa.co.uk/atol-protection/

In some circumstances, Atol may appoint what it calls a “fulfilment partner” to provide the holiday instead, although this is more likely for holidays booked further in advance.

Are you covered if you have bought a flight-only deal on Thomas Cook Airlines?

Unlikely. Atol was set up to protect holidaymakers who buy package deals, not people putting together holidays on their own over the internet. But there can be some exceptions, such as if the passenger bought the ticket through an Atol licenced travel agent. However, if you booked directly with the airline it is unlikely you will be covered. When XL crashed in 2008, the CAA said flight-only customers were at the back of the queue, and that while it would make efforts to organise cost-only seats, it would not offer any guarantees.

Updated

“Thomas Cook UK Plc and associated UK entities have entered Compulsory Liquidation and are now under the control of the Official Receiver,” says Thomas Cook’s website.

“The UK business has ceased trading with immediate effect and all future flights and holidays are cancelled.”

Thomas Cook has ceased trading with immediate effect, all flights cancelled

The UK Civil Aviation Authority has announced that Thomas Cook Group has ceased trading with immediate effect, with all flights and holidays cancelled.

Hello to you wherever you are around the world, especially if you are stuck there because of Thomas Cook’s insolvency.

Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Thomas Cook collapse, we will bring you news and reaction as it comes in.

Thomas Cook has gone into administration leaving 150,000 UK travellers stranded across the world and putting 9,000 British jobs at risk.

The announcement comes after talks throughout Sunday aimed at saving the world’s oldest holiday company, that failed to solve the crisis.

The collapse of Thomas Cook has left holidaymakers stuck around the world, and will prompt the UK’s largest-ever peacetime repatriation, codenamed Operation Matterhorn.

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said on Sunday that the government had contingency plans in place for passengers and sought to reassure holidaymakers that they would not end up stuck overseas. The company had appealed to ministers for a bailout but Raab said the government did not “systemically step in” unless it was in the national interest.

It is understood that airlines including British Airways and easyJet will be involved in the airlift for holidaymakers using Thomas Cook, whose destinations range from mainland Europe to north Africa, the Middle East, the US and the Caribbean.

Are you affected by the Thomas Cook collapse? Get in touch in the comments of the blog, via email (kate.lyons@theguardian.com) or on Twitter to tell me what’s going on for you.

I’ll do my best to find answers for your questions and will be sharing people’s experiences on the blog.

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