53,000 Britons stranded in Spain - Nordic arm to continue operations

LONDON: Britain has repatriated ten percent of nationals who were stranded abroad after the collapse of travel firm Thomas Cook, authorities said yesterday, as anger erupted over excessive management pay. The Civil Aviation Authority regulator, which is managing the UK's biggest repatriation since World War II after Thomas Cook's dramatic bankruptcy, said in a statement that it flew back 14,700 of the 150,000 stranded Britons on Monday.

The CAA added that it hoped to bring back another 16,500 people yesterday.
The dramatic collapse of Thomas Cook left 600,000 customers of all nationalities stranded in popular tourist destinations dotted around the globe, including Cancun, Kos, Las Vegas and Lanzarote.

"Following the very sad news … that Thomas Cook had stopped trading and its aircraft were grounded, we launched at the government's request our operation to return more than 150,000 people to the UK," said CAA Chief Executive Richard Moriarty.

The collapse of Thomas Cook has affected 53,000 Britons in Spain, Spanish Acting Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto told reporters yesterday. The ministry has been in touch with German and Swedish authorities to ensure Thomas Cook subsidiaries continue to operate at least for the winter season, she added.

'Unprecedented'
Moriarty added: "A repatriation of this scale and nature is unprecedented and unfortunately there will be some inconvenience and disruption for customers. "We will do everything we can to minimize this as the operation continues.
"We want people to continue to enjoy their holiday, so we will bring them back to the UK on their original departure day, or very soon thereafter." Meanwhile, criticism is mounting over the pay of Thomas Cook's management, who steered the 178-year-old company into the rocks with vast debts.

The Sun tabloid newspaper slammed Thomas Cook's "fat cat bosses", adding that the group's last five chief executives had "pocketed" a total of £47 million (53 million euros/$58 million) in pay and bonuses since 2007. The failed company's Swiss chief executive Peter Fankhauser, who apologized for his group's failure on Monday, has been paid £8.4 million since 2014 according to the paper. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has questioned whether failing management should receive huge salaries.

'Questions' over pay
"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," said Johnson, quoted by British media in New York where he is attending the UN General Assembly.
Quizzed about tougher rules, Johnson added: "I think that you need to have some system by which tour operators properly insure themselves against this kind of eventuality."

Thomas Cook, which had struggled against fierce online competition for years and blamed Brexit uncertainty for a recent drop in bookings, declared bankruptcy after failing to secure £200 million from private investors. Monday's bankruptcy followed a lengthy period of chronic financial turmoil after a disastrous series of mergers left it burdened with soaring debt, a large branch network and high costs.

Nordic business

Thomas Cook's Nordic business said yesterday it would continue to operate as it is a separate legal entity from its London-listed parent, which collapsed on Monday, and it was looking for new owners.
The Nordic arm of Thomas Cook said on Monday all its flights would resume on Tuesday, although some disruptions were reported. "Since we are an independent and profitable part of the business, we are already able to continue our operations with support from our banks, lenders and guarantors," Magnus Wikner, managing director of Thomas Cook's Nordic business, said.

Hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers were stranded by the collapse of the world's oldest travel firm, sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history. The company's British fleet was grounded immediately after the parent group became insolvent to comply with operating licence requirements.

In the Nordics, close to 35,000 holidaymakers were travelling at the time of Thomas Cook's announcement, which resulted in the cancellation of flights on Monday. Thomas Cook's Nordic business consists of two legal entities, Thomas Cook Northern Europe and Thomas Cook Scandinavian Airlines, and is also known as Ving Group. The business operates under several brands: Ving in Norway, Spies in Denmark, Tjäreborg in Finland, as well as Ving and Globetrotter in Sweden.

The liquidation of Thomas Cook, which marks the end of a British company that started in 1841 running local rail excursions and grew to pioneer the family package holiday, has sent shockwaves across the global tourism industry. In Spain, the country's Acting Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto told reporters that the ministry has been in touch with German and Swedish authorities to ensure Thomas Cook subsidiaries continue to operate at least for the winter season.

And it has left questions over which parts of the Thomas Cook empire can be salvaged from the wreckage, including the Nordic business.
"Several potential buyers have taken an interest in acquiring the Nordic business," Ving Norway spokeswoman Siri Roehr-Staff said. "The talks on a sale are administered from London by those who are in charge of liquidating the Thomas Cook Group." - Agencies