Five years ago today, more than 20,000 travel industry employees around the world received the shocking news that they’d lost their jobs after Thomas Cook, the 178-year-old pioneer of package holidays, collapsed.
Some 9,000 of those staff were based in the UK, either employed in its 555 high street stores, its Peterborough HQ, or working for its airline. Many others based overseas were left stranded when the airline was grounded.
It was also devastating for the homeworkers who were part of Thomas Cook-owned Freedom Travel Group, which sank into liquidation as a result of the parent company’s failure.
Some of those former employees who have been recalling their memories of that fateful day in Travel Gossip’s Facebook group, and it’s heartening to hear that so many – most of whom have overwhelmingly fond memories of working for one of the UK’s best-loved brands – have gone on to prosper in the travel industry, despite being dealt such a heavy blow on 23 September 2019.
It’s well known that Hays Travel, run by John and Irene Hays, swooped in to acquire Thomas Cook’s entire retail arm for £6 million, with promises to rescue as many of the 555 shops as they could and protect thousands of jobs.
Hays did manage to reopen the vast majority of Thomas Cook branches prior to the pandemic, adding to its existing retail network of 190 stores. It offered jobs to 2,330 Thomas Cook employees, and also planned to take on 1,500 more personnel, boosting its headcount to 5,700.
Following a few smaller acquisitions in the past couple of years – including Miles Morgan Travel’s 19 branches and three-branch Holiday with Us – Hays currently has a total of 498 branches and 4,500 staff, suggesting it has retained around half of the Thomas Cook shops its acquired.
Several of those staff who were retained by Hays told Travel Gossip that the takeover was a positive outcome. Trenaye Hylton said: “I am lucky to still be in the same shop, as Hays bought it. Was gutted that it happened but the outcome with Hays taking the shops and COVID was the best thing that could have happened.”
Kerry Latham
Laura Bolton
Theresa Ziplock
Theresa Ziplock, (above right) who worked for Thomas Cook for 15 years prior to its failure, told Travel Gossip she’s now a branch manger with Hays.
Almost 80% of the 155 Freedom Travel Group members and the 140 Freedom Personal Travel Advisors managed to join other consortia or homeworking groups, including Midcounties Co-op and Vertical Travel Group, many of them within days of the collapse.
One Freedom PTA described how they lost £25,000 in commission and had to rebook all their clients who’d lost their holidays, having quickly joined Your Holiday Booking within hours of the collapse. They wrote on Travel Gossip’s Facebook group: “So proud to have kept it together on that very dark week when our hearts were breaking and we had lost our successful businesses & in my case £25k in lost commission.
“The HW [homeworker] got nothing back, we lost the lot, still breaks my heart.”
Claire Dixon, who had started as a Saturday girl with Thomas Cook in 1989, joined Holiday Village within 90 minutes of being told she’d lost her job. She said: “I can never thank Paula Nuttall (Holiday Village Managing Director) and the Holiday Village for saving me. I still have a ‘Don’t just book it Thomas Cook it’ jumper with Teddy on it!”
Another wrote: “I joined Your Holiday Booking three days later and never looked back. I am celebrating my 50th year working in the travel industry this year and still love every minute of it.”
Lots of those who worked for Thomas Cook, both in stores and at board level, have since gone on to forge even better careers. Many have launched their own travel agencies or homeworking businesses.
Former Thomas Cook agent Laura Bolton (above middle) wrote: “I was heartbroken but I got straight at it and launched my own business with Travel Counsellors and I’m now nearly five years in and I’m a Gold TC, currently on our last Gold trip the year in Doha, Qatar and I’m honestly loving life.
“I’d have never thought it at the time, but it was a blessing in disguise.”
Bianca Whalley who joined Travel Counsellors after 20 years with Thomas Cook said: “Five years on and loving being my own boss.”
Kerry Latham (above left) recalled how ‘the worst day of her working life’ turned out to be the start of something good. “In the same year I launched my own business with Travel Counsellors, almost five years down the line I am travelling more, gained a new extended work family and definitely more financially secure,” she said.
“The closure of Thomas Cook, although so sad at the time was absolutely the best thing that happened for myself and my family.”
One agent who’d worked for Thomas Cook for 35 years describe being ‘heartbroken’ when it went it liquidation, but joined Holidaysplease as an independent agent and said: “I love what I do now so much better.”
Former Thomas Cook manager Pat Curtis recalled how staff in the shops were told of the company’s demise via a conference call before they knew themselves what was going on. “I was very angry at the time, but can look back now and thank them,” they said. “Been a successful Independent travel agent/business owner for the last 13 years.”
Of course, the Thomas Cook name lives on since its main shareholder, Chinese conglomerate Fosun, paid $14.4 million to buy the brand and the Casa Cook and Cook’s Club hotels from the liquidators. It went on to launch a purely online travel agency under the same name in 2020, led by Alan French, who had been Thomas Cook’s Group Strategy and Technology Director at the time of its collapse.
Fosun sold Thomas Cook earlier this month to Polish travel technology company eSky Group.
Two more former Thomas Cook employees, Steve Bentzen and Gemma Sharman, also launched an online travel agency in 2020, called Sunny Heart Travel, which derived its name from Thomas Cook’s yellow heart logo.
Initially operating under the Protected Trust Services umbrella before joining Hays Independence Group, it later expanded onto the high street, opening a store in Westgate, Peterborough, before moving to the Queensgate Shopping Centre.
However, there were signs the business was starting to struggle late last year when the Peterborough shop closed and its website was later taken offline. It has since been wound up.
Former Chief Executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa (above left) bore the brunt of the blame for Thomas Cook’s collapse, even though he’d long-since left by the time the company failed.
He was responsible for Thomas Cook’s ill-fated acquisition in 2007 of MyTravel Group, a company that hadn’t made a profit for years, and for the merger in 2010 with The Co-operative Group, giving it more than 1,200 shops at a time when retail was shifting online.
After leaving Thomas Cook, he launched a bed bank, Magic Rooms, which was later taken over by online travel agent LogiTravel, of which he is now President.
Turnaround specialist Harriet Green, (above middle) previously CEO of electronics distributor Premier Farnell, agreed to replace Manny as Chief Executive, even though she described Thomas Cook as a ‘basket case’. She said at the time that it wouldn’t be ‘rocket science’ to turn it around. She was right, it proved much harder than that to transform the lumbering holiday giant into a profitable business and, despite having significantly increased its share price, she was ousted by the board after less than two years in the job.
Harriet went on to become CEO and Chair of IBM Asia Pacific, from 2018 to 2020. Describing herself as a ‘founder, philanthropist and global business transformer’, today she is Chair of Academies for Youth with Potential, a charity she helped launch in Thailand.
Having replaced Harriet as Thomas Cook CEO in 2014, Peter Fankhauser (above right) was the man in charge when it finally collapsed in 2019. Since then, he’s held multiple positions, at Swiss-German business consultancy Manres AG, where he is currently CEO. He is also Honorary Professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
The post Five years after its collapse, where are Thomas Cook’s staff now? appeared first on Travel Gossip.
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Some 9,000 of those staff were based in the UK, either employed in its 555 high street stores, its Peterborough HQ, or working for its airline. Many others based overseas were left stranded when the airline was grounded.
It was also devastating for the homeworkers who were part of Thomas Cook-owned Freedom Travel Group, which sank into liquidation as a result of the parent company’s failure.
Some of those former employees who have been recalling their memories of that fateful day in Travel Gossip’s Facebook group, and it’s heartening to hear that so many – most of whom have overwhelmingly fond memories of working for one of the UK’s best-loved brands – have gone on to prosper in the travel industry, despite being dealt such a heavy blow on 23 September 2019.
It’s well known that Hays Travel, run by John and Irene Hays, swooped in to acquire Thomas Cook’s entire retail arm for £6 million, with promises to rescue as many of the 555 shops as they could and protect thousands of jobs.
Hays did manage to reopen the vast majority of Thomas Cook branches prior to the pandemic, adding to its existing retail network of 190 stores. It offered jobs to 2,330 Thomas Cook employees, and also planned to take on 1,500 more personnel, boosting its headcount to 5,700.
Following a few smaller acquisitions in the past couple of years – including Miles Morgan Travel’s 19 branches and three-branch Holiday with Us – Hays currently has a total of 498 branches and 4,500 staff, suggesting it has retained around half of the Thomas Cook shops its acquired.
Several of those staff who were retained by Hays told Travel Gossip that the takeover was a positive outcome. Trenaye Hylton said: “I am lucky to still be in the same shop, as Hays bought it. Was gutted that it happened but the outcome with Hays taking the shops and COVID was the best thing that could have happened.”
Kerry Latham
Laura Bolton
Theresa Ziplock
Theresa Ziplock, (above right) who worked for Thomas Cook for 15 years prior to its failure, told Travel Gossip she’s now a branch manger with Hays.
Almost 80% of the 155 Freedom Travel Group members and the 140 Freedom Personal Travel Advisors managed to join other consortia or homeworking groups, including Midcounties Co-op and Vertical Travel Group, many of them within days of the collapse.
One Freedom PTA described how they lost £25,000 in commission and had to rebook all their clients who’d lost their holidays, having quickly joined Your Holiday Booking within hours of the collapse. They wrote on Travel Gossip’s Facebook group: “So proud to have kept it together on that very dark week when our hearts were breaking and we had lost our successful businesses & in my case £25k in lost commission.
“The HW [homeworker] got nothing back, we lost the lot, still breaks my heart.”
Claire Dixon, who had started as a Saturday girl with Thomas Cook in 1989, joined Holiday Village within 90 minutes of being told she’d lost her job. She said: “I can never thank Paula Nuttall (Holiday Village Managing Director) and the Holiday Village for saving me. I still have a ‘Don’t just book it Thomas Cook it’ jumper with Teddy on it!”
Another wrote: “I joined Your Holiday Booking three days later and never looked back. I am celebrating my 50th year working in the travel industry this year and still love every minute of it.”
Lots of those who worked for Thomas Cook, both in stores and at board level, have since gone on to forge even better careers. Many have launched their own travel agencies or homeworking businesses.
Former Thomas Cook agent Laura Bolton (above middle) wrote: “I was heartbroken but I got straight at it and launched my own business with Travel Counsellors and I’m now nearly five years in and I’m a Gold TC, currently on our last Gold trip the year in Doha, Qatar and I’m honestly loving life.
“I’d have never thought it at the time, but it was a blessing in disguise.”
Bianca Whalley who joined Travel Counsellors after 20 years with Thomas Cook said: “Five years on and loving being my own boss.”
Kerry Latham (above left) recalled how ‘the worst day of her working life’ turned out to be the start of something good. “In the same year I launched my own business with Travel Counsellors, almost five years down the line I am travelling more, gained a new extended work family and definitely more financially secure,” she said.
“The closure of Thomas Cook, although so sad at the time was absolutely the best thing that happened for myself and my family.”
One agent who’d worked for Thomas Cook for 35 years describe being ‘heartbroken’ when it went it liquidation, but joined Holidaysplease as an independent agent and said: “I love what I do now so much better.”
Former Thomas Cook manager Pat Curtis recalled how staff in the shops were told of the company’s demise via a conference call before they knew themselves what was going on. “I was very angry at the time, but can look back now and thank them,” they said. “Been a successful Independent travel agent/business owner for the last 13 years.”
Of course, the Thomas Cook name lives on since its main shareholder, Chinese conglomerate Fosun, paid $14.4 million to buy the brand and the Casa Cook and Cook’s Club hotels from the liquidators. It went on to launch a purely online travel agency under the same name in 2020, led by Alan French, who had been Thomas Cook’s Group Strategy and Technology Director at the time of its collapse.
Fosun sold Thomas Cook earlier this month to Polish travel technology company eSky Group.
Two more former Thomas Cook employees, Steve Bentzen and Gemma Sharman, also launched an online travel agency in 2020, called Sunny Heart Travel, which derived its name from Thomas Cook’s yellow heart logo.
Initially operating under the Protected Trust Services umbrella before joining Hays Independence Group, it later expanded onto the high street, opening a store in Westgate, Peterborough, before moving to the Queensgate Shopping Centre.
However, there were signs the business was starting to struggle late last year when the Peterborough shop closed and its website was later taken offline. It has since been wound up.
What has happened to those in charge of Thomas Cook in 2019?
Former Chief Executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa (above left) bore the brunt of the blame for Thomas Cook’s collapse, even though he’d long-since left by the time the company failed.
He was responsible for Thomas Cook’s ill-fated acquisition in 2007 of MyTravel Group, a company that hadn’t made a profit for years, and for the merger in 2010 with The Co-operative Group, giving it more than 1,200 shops at a time when retail was shifting online.
After leaving Thomas Cook, he launched a bed bank, Magic Rooms, which was later taken over by online travel agent LogiTravel, of which he is now President.
Turnaround specialist Harriet Green, (above middle) previously CEO of electronics distributor Premier Farnell, agreed to replace Manny as Chief Executive, even though she described Thomas Cook as a ‘basket case’. She said at the time that it wouldn’t be ‘rocket science’ to turn it around. She was right, it proved much harder than that to transform the lumbering holiday giant into a profitable business and, despite having significantly increased its share price, she was ousted by the board after less than two years in the job.
Harriet went on to become CEO and Chair of IBM Asia Pacific, from 2018 to 2020. Describing herself as a ‘founder, philanthropist and global business transformer’, today she is Chair of Academies for Youth with Potential, a charity she helped launch in Thailand.
Having replaced Harriet as Thomas Cook CEO in 2014, Peter Fankhauser (above right) was the man in charge when it finally collapsed in 2019. Since then, he’s held multiple positions, at Swiss-German business consultancy Manres AG, where he is currently CEO. He is also Honorary Professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
The post Five years after its collapse, where are Thomas Cook’s staff now? appeared first on Travel Gossip.
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