Transcripts For BBCNEWS Review 2019 20240713

Now on bbc news, tom burridge revisits of the collapse of travel revisits the collapse of travel firm thomas cook and its far reaching effects on customers and staff. In review 2019 the thomas cook story. All chant what do we want . Answers when do we want them . Now it is a travesty, it has devastating our lives because of Thomas Cook Airlines uk. The captain turned around to me and said to me it is gone. I went into the flight deck and cried. When do we want them . Now it has not been possible to save one of the most loved brands in travel. After 178 years, it was all over. As i got to the airport, i started to cry, because i thought im coming here in a uniform and ive got nowhere to go. You cant just leave brits stranded abroad. I want to go home bankruptcy, bitterness and rage. I think it has been a National Scandal to let a company of that size and that heritage in the industryjust fall like that. They took millions of british tourists abroad every year. The biggest brand offering winter or summer sunshine. Thomas cook was the uks oldest travel business, also the best known travel brand on the high street as well. So it had a huge amount of love and respect from its customers and its employees. It changed the way people travel. Two weeks in greece, late july. Lets see . And created a new concept the package holiday. Dontjust book it thomas cook it. Trips to places like spain became the new norm as tourism boomed. And as our travel addiction took off, thomas cook grew and grew. Exotic, enticing destinations were affordable for millions. But what the glitzy marketing didnt show was that thomas cook was in debt. We know weve been in the news a lot recently. The message injuly all will be fine. Keep booking with thomas cook, your holiday is in safe hands. They were wrong. We just want to bring some breaking news now on thomas cook. We have just heard in the last few minutes that thomas cook has ceased trading. Thomas cook, one of the worlds biggest tour operators, has collapsed after last ditch talks to save the business failed. Britains oldest travel group, thomas cook, collapses. The companys fleet of planes was grounded in the early hours of this morning, wrecking the Holiday Plans of so many people. As its planes landed back in britain one last time, they were seized and impounded at uk airports. That name, a giant of uk travel, was bankrupt. It had taken people on organised trips for a century and a half, but the age of the thomas cook holiday was done. People sort of suspected that it would never happen, then it did. So it was a very sad day and the repercussions are just continuing to spin out now. Check in at uk airports normally bustling on a monday morning, suddenly a sorry sight. People felt the impact of the companys collapse straightaway. I was told to come here, now to find out that my flight has been cancelled, with three kids. My son has adhd and autism, and his sister, and they are sobbing their hearts out in the car. I got in touch with thomas cook yesterday and they said everything had gone through and there was nowt to worry about. I got in touch with thomas cook to make sure everything was going ahead and they said under no circumstances the holiday would be cancelled. And we would be put on another plane regardless of whether they went into liquidation or not. We got set off at 3am this morning, and we were given a duty of care number, and they said the holiday cant go ahead because there were no planes available. I was reporting at gatwick once the news broke. Look at this. Yesterday, check in here would have been very busy. But with the company collapsing overnight, its airlines effectively vanished. There was inevitable chaos, and youd think that on a story that big, that everyone had seen the news but people were still pitching up to the airport, hoping, probably, that they could somehow get on a flight, get on their holiday. We are gutted, disappointed. I mean, it meant a lot to us. Its our first holiday away together. Im still angry. We met stephan and zoe, who were supposed to fly to the canaries to scatter her dads ashes. With them on the trip, their young children. They are devastated, theyve cried, you know, theyre not themselves. Theyd been looking forward to this for months and months. We didntjust decide to go, weve planned this. We had to get paperwork for the ashes. We had to do everything. Martin and gemma has been planning their wedding on a greek island, but theyd booked it all with thomas cook. It broke my heart. I couldnt believe it. Was gutted. Didnt want it to be true. It alljust seems for nothing now. We are a bit confused and empty. Dont really know what to do. All of that planning and its sort of. All gone. But the big challenge for the authorities was at airports abroad. When the company folded, there were 150,000 people already on thomas cook holidays in places like majorca. Now, it was down to the uk government to get every single one of them home. We knew the scale of what we had to undertake. Nothing like this has ever been done before. Theres never been a peacetime repatriation thats been as big. So, yeah, we were pretty nervous and absolutely keyed up to do it. But, yeah, kind of biting our fingernails at the same time. The operation was codenamed matterhorn. The Civil Aviation authority had been planning it for weeks. We really, really hoped there was going to be a commercial solution for thomas cook, because really this was not an operation we ever wanted to undertake. I mean, thomas cook its the worlds oldest travel company, its employees, its customers, its really sad. I think actually almost up to two days beforehand, we thought there was the possibility of a commercial solution but, of course, you have to prepare for scenarios that are very different. But even before the operation to bring people home had begun, hotels were, for a while, refusing to let customers leave as my colleague gavin lee witnessed first hand in majorca. Well, this is the main thomas cook run hotel in palma, and we are being told by staff that everything is ok but management will not speak to us. And if you look, theyve got security here for the first time. They are quite nervous. Its one of a number of hotels, we understand, are waiting to be paid in arrears from thomas cook and meantime, they are still having to look after the customers too. Reception dont know what is happening. They said yes, the hotel is open at the moment. We feel like at any moment, like, we are vulnerable and could be asked to leave. Thomas cook customers had paid for their holidays but many hotels which were owed money by the company were initially unaware that theyd be refunded by the uks atol travel insurance scheme, and some were demanding people pay for a second time. We went out for dinner last night and came back to the hotel and we couldnt get into our room. So we had to go downstairs to the lobby and the lady said you basically give us 340 euro and you can get back into your room. So that is what we had to do. It was up to the uks Civil Aviation authority to reassure hotels that they would be paid. We spoke, in the first three days, we spoke to 3,500 hotels, which individually and some of them were reasonably quite cross. 0ne hotel in mexico that was owed over 1 million. So they were not happy. But we did manage to reassure them that the atol protected customers would be paid for, and that calmed things down and allowed people to continue their holidays. To understand the scale of the companys demise, it helps to consider its rise, which began yes right back in the 1800s. One of its shops can even be spotted on the corner of st marks square in venice in 1898. The firm then enjoyed a century of growth and success a winner in the modern age. But in 2007, it merged with mytravel to create a much bigger group. Thats when its debt grew. Other factors like competition from Online Travel agents, or 0tas, then pushed it over the edge. Various factors. Importa ntly, competition for thomas cook had increased massively in the last decade, so new players likejet2 holidays, and 0tas took millions of customers now away from the big tour operators. It had been a challenging market, with brexit uncertainty and a weak pound, but ultimately, thomas cooks problems came back to this huge debt they had been saddled with from a previous business merger which meant the business was not able really to be truly profitable because it had to put so much of its profits back into servicing the interest on the debt. In the wake of thomas cooks downfall, the immediate priority was to get the tens of thousands of tourists back to britain. Hi the manchester flight is full, right . The compa nys staff, who had lost theirjobs, helped out. 0ur rep was really good. He came to that hotel two or three times today, didnt he . , to make sure we could get home and make sure we knew what was going on. But with confusion inevitable, that first day at airports like palma, in majorca, was the hardest. To watch the matterhorn repatriations effort at first was chaotic. It didnt go well at all. There were hundreds and hundreds of thomas cook passengers coming to the airport. They were anxious, they took cabs they did not know if the coaches would turn up. They were told by thomas cook staff and also the Civil Aviation authority to stay in one corner of the departures lounge, and that built up and built up. There were some people there for 18 or 19 hours, sitting down, lying on the floor, some crying as well, working out how they would get home. By day two, it was completely different. The big airlines had come in to help and it was really smooth from there. The Civil Aviation authority had experience to draw on when Monarch Airlines collapsed two years ago. Then, it had to repatriate more than 100,000 people. But 0peration matterhorn, which cost the uk government £40 million, was significantly bigger. At the beginning of week two, i was allowed on board an airbus a380 tasked with bringing hundreds of people home. This airbus a380 is about to head to sunny majorca to bring around 400 thomas cook customers back here to rainy manchester. This plane, the largest in a fleet of aircraft assembled by the Civil Aviation authority, to bring tens of thousands of people home. This shows you just how different running a Repatriation Mission is to operating a commercial an airline. The aircraft leave uk airports empty. But when they are in majorca, the authorities get as many holiday makers as possible on board. Before the company went bust, there were seven thomas cook flights scheduled to leave palma today for uk airports. With this giant aircraft, those seven flights become one into manchester. It has been absolutely fabulous. The holiday was fabulous. The information was fabulous. We have to get to manchester we live in brighton, so weve got to get a coach down. So what . People have lost theirjobs. Its all been fabulous. Initially, yes, it was worrying. Things have gone quite smooth but initially it was worrying. Very lucky. Very lucky, considering all of the staff who have lost theirjobs and people who have lost their holidays. We managed to finish ours, so you cannot say more than that really. Then, the flight back and the paper cups a reminder about who was supposed to fly them home. But some did travel in style for the first time. Never thought i would see the day that we would be sat in business class, i think its ace we couldnt believe it when we came up the steps. Were in business class, arent we . Brilliant, weve never flown like this before the Civil Aviation authority had to operate a complicated flight schedule over two weeks. Overall, it was a job well done. The planning had paid off, some problems were just hard to foresee. Silly things, in a way, would go wrong. For example, there were fourairports in cuba. Because we only had one big plane, we thought it would be sensible to amalgamate everyone to one airport, great idea, but there wasnt enough fuel in cuba to bus all those people to one airport. So forget that plan it was things like that that went wrong all the time. I was very, very glad when the last plane landed it was, for many, notjust a job, but a dreamy lifestyle travel, sunshine, and working for a powerful brand. But in a flash, it was all gone. 9,000 people in the uk had lost theirjobs. Is it here we sign for the redundancy courses . They came together soon after at manchester airport. As i got to the airport, i started to cry because i thought ive come here in a uniform, but ive got nowhere to go. My colleague Simon Browning was there. People who ive spoken to, nobody expected it to happen. It was like the death, a death in theirfamily. They had always worked together and known the structure and suddenly, it vanished. My name is betty knight. I was cabin crew for Thomas Cook Airlines for 12 years. Our management seem to have disappeared into the sunset with millions and millions of pounds. While all of our lovely passengers and customers have been helped by the Civil Aviation authority who have done an incredible job and they have been assisted, our cabin crew, members of our cabin team, have been stuck without even a word or a phone call, in really dire circumstances. What do we want . Answers when do we want them . Now what do we want . Answers when do we want them . Now within days, thomas cook staff had travelled from different parts of the country to westminster. We wa nt a nswers we want it now the impact of what had happened was still sinking in. We just cannot understand what has gone wrong. Weve not been paid, a lot of us have children and mortgages, people have gone to food banks. Its unbelievable we are in this situation. We have just been pushed out. I wont get anotherjob, im too old to be employed now. Its a travesty. 0ur lives are ruined because of Thomas Cook Airlines uk. But top of their minds were questions about how the business went under. Why did this company not go into administration but they went into liquidation overnight, in two hours . Why . Its not on, we need answers and we need them now. All of the big ceos and their big bonuses, we understand they need to have bonuses but they must have known what was going on. Peter fankhauser has a lot to answer for. Peter fankhauser was in charge when thomas cook went bust. This is a statement i hoped i would never have to make. It is deeply distressing to me that it has not been possible to save one of the most loved brands in travel. Thank you. He was paid more than £8 million in the last five years. Weeks later, he was grilled by mps. Do you think that bonus should be paid back . I can say i worked tirelessly for the success of this company and im deeply sorry i was not able to secure the deal. This man also faced questions. Can we just ask, do you feel responsible for the failure of the company . Manny Fontenla Novoa was in charge during the period when the debt really grew. He insisted he was not to blame for the demise of the company. When we heard the news on the morning of the 23rd, i was still awake. I was watching it unfold. I was heartbroken, devastated. For about two weeks after that, i couldnt even get dressed. I couldnt face the world. Got a bit anxious. Suffered from anxiety and depression actually as well. It took me a good three or four weeks to be able to go back out there and start applying forjobs. When that came to an end for me and i realised i was no longer involved in that industry, it was such a shock. The benefits, emotionally and psychologically, to fly are great. When that ends as suddenly as it did, it is a huge loss. People who werent earning huge salaries at thomas cook are facing a new reality this christmas. Im now near retirement. It is not likely i will get anotherjob. Its just. Why did it finish in that way . Thats not how i wanted to finish my career. Its a big feeling of loss. One of our friends, she ended up with her partner using her redundancy to live in a hotel, in a b8b and she was declared homeless. She has been on the waiting list. Another friend was put out of her accommodation very quickly. She is having to be supported. It happened so quickly, overnight. What do you think the overall impact has been on you, in the three months since . Simon has discovered many people still out of work have struggled to get Financial Support from the state. I think the system has failed me. It isntjust me. Loads of ex colleagues going through the same situation and the system has failed us. We paid tax and National Insurance all our working lives to be given nothing. It makes me angry and frustrated with the system. The people at the job centre my particular circumstance were good people. They were embarrassed about what was happening, but they were powerless also. You realise that youre just a number. Powerless also. You realise that yourejust a number. It powerless also. You realise that youre just a number. It does not matter what you have contributed or done. Youre made to feel that it all does not matter, these are the rules and that is what we do and thatis rules and that is what we do and that is the end of it. We put all of these claims to the department for work and pensions, they have said they are sorry and are urging all former thomas cook staff to keep in touch with theirjob centres so they can urgently try and fix these claims. Thomas cook staff are also perplexed by the fact that the companys german airline, condor, was kept afloat and is still operating today. The government was forced to defend its decision not to save thomas cooks uk airline. Whilst i hear people saying, why didnt you just put the money in, the answer is, all you would have to do is open their books and realise, if you have £1. 7 billion of debt, if you lost £1. 5 billion in six months alone, if you issued another profit warning, this is entirely different to the condor situation which was a fundamentally profitable airline. But a positive turnaround for some staff, who went back to work. Hays travel announced it was saving around 500 thomas cook stores. Im sat with all of my team now, they would all be happy to come back to the branch. Nicola and her colleagues, who thought they had lost theirjobs, were with the bbcs Coletta Smith when they got a call to say that they were now not unemployed. They are opening and we just have to contact them. Clapping. It wasjust incredible, for me one of the most amazing moments as a journalist to be in the room at that moment when someones life is turned around in seconds. They thought they would be made redundant. They were already looking for other jobs, looking for other work but then to be told they got theirjobs back was incredible. They were in tears, hugging each other. We were joining in. You couldnt not, in a room like that. It was so exciting and emotional. Just incredible to be there. As travel evolved over the decades, thomas cook navigated huge change and reaped the rewards. But, in 2019, that romanticjourney came to an abrupt end. Thomas cook employees and thomas cook customers, whether they had their holiday or were waiting for the insurance to pay out, and our staff and all the people who help, it was Something Like 1 Million People affected. Its an enormous number and on top of that, youve got all of those hotels abroad and in some areas, these hotels were really relying on thomas cook passengers to revitalise the economy. Certainly the biggest story ive ever covered in 13. 5 years of travel trade journalism. Something we will continue to write about for years, if not decades, i am sure. I think it has been a National Scandal to let a company of that size and heritage and historyjust fall like that. Life has moved on, and i dont think you ever actually know or get the answers to questions that the crew and people who work for thomas cook would seek. The oldest brand in British Travel is gone. And those who were the heart and soul of the company will be picking up the pieces well into the new year. We want answers, we want them now what do we want . Answers when do we want them . Now what do we want . Hello. After all the wet weather weve had lately, today feels like a christmas miracle blue skies and sunshine for the rest of this Christmas Day, so it looks fine if youre heading out for a stroll later on to walk off some of that christmas lunch. But on the satellite picture, you can see this lump of cloud out to the west. Thats going to change things a little bit as we go through tonight and into boxing day, so we end the afternoon with temperatures in single digits, but with some late sunshine and then some clear skies after dark and that will allow some fog to form, particularly across central and eastern parts of england. Some of that could be quite dense for a time, so do bear that in mind if you are travelling this evening. As we go through tonight, that fog will tend to lift because well see more cloud rolling in from the west. The breeze will pick up and well start to see some outbreaks of rain through northern and western wales and the south west of england. Turning milder here as well, further east and particularly further north. Another chilly night will get down below freezing, at least for a time across some parts of scotland, but for tomorrow, for boxing day, we see this frontal system pushing its way eastwards across the british isles, and that will bring some outbreaks of rain. This first rain band pushing its way north east has a little bit of snow mixing in, perhaps over the very highest levels of the pennines and the highest ground in scotland as well. Behind that, the skies will start to brighten a little bit. There will be some further showers and some more persistent rain working back into the south west. Temperature wise through the afternoon well, many of us still in single figures, five, six, seven, eight degrees, but milder than that down to the south 11 for cardiff, 12 degrees in plymouth. Quite a windy day as well, particularly across the far south west of england. Now, as we go through thursday night, boxing day night again, you might have travel plans. We will see outbreaks of rain continuing to drift northeast with some clear spells as well. Now, as we get into friday, High Pressure to the south trying to keep things settled. But to the north, we have frontal systems and this warm front here, as it moves its way through, will open the door to some much milder air pushing up from the south. So we end this week on friday on a very mild note indeed. Outbreaks of rain tending to clear away eastwards, some further rain into the northwest of scotland. But generally speaking, a decent amount of dry weather, some spells of sunshine, but those temperatures higher than they have been, ten degrees for aberdeen, 12 degrees in birmingham. And we stick with that milder weather as we head towards the weekend. Therell be a bit of rain in the northwest. Many of us will be dry. Thats all from me for now. Enjoy the rest of your day. Get on this is bbc news, im carrie gracie. The headlines at two the queen leads members of the royal family at their traditional Christmas Day service. The young royals Prince George and Princess Charlotte also joined the annual christmas gathering for the first time. 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