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Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

theguardian.com

131–140 of 285 posts

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exchange rate decline was likely the biggest Brexit-related factor.

... they should have hedged it for the packages people had actually purchased. That's what currency hedges are for. Prices going up do decrease sales, of course.

When you're almost £2 billion in the hole, how feasible is it to hedge currency?

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#132
post #110
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most British companies I’ve seen operating appear to be an absolute mess from the inside. It’s funny that the British have the Northern European credibility in business but I don’t think they’re anywhere close as efficient or organised as the Germans or the Dutch. This is just personal experience but I’ve come to realise it seems to be the norm that British management is overall terrible.

Incorrect (Or have you sources?).... the issue is old legacy based companies. No matter where they are based. Legacy as in business systems, business thought process, legacy IT, etc. TC is a very old company

There are also old companies who manage to keep up and innovate, and care about competence. Not as much as tiny startups, but enough to survive and do well.

One problem with the British upperclass, is that they tend to be educated at private schools like Eton, where they primarily learn confidence. So tons of British politicians and managers know how to appear to know what they're doing, without actually knowing what they're doing. As long as things are going well, this works fine, especially since the people they do business with come from the same schools. But when the shit hits the fan, it turns into a fumbling circus. Like it did with Tories and Brexit.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I think companies have a duty to their shareholders to fight to stay in business until it's literally impossible to do so. As long as there are resources left, those would have to be allocated to preserving the business, rather than to smoothing the process for their customers.

In that case the shareholders should be held responsible for leaving people stranded.

The whole point of a limited liability company is to shield shareholders from responsibility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability#Justificatio...

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#134
post #75

I guess as they've gone bust I can tell this story now ... I used to consult for Thomas Cook about 15 years ago, and they were a basketcase of a company even back them, so this doesn't surprise me. I feel sorry for all the reps and workers out in the field and on the planes who will lose their jobs because of the profligacy of the Peterborough head office. Two examples of stupidity stick with me. One was that at the…

As one who specialises in enterprise SEO.

That is still an issue with many businesses, websites are still seen as just an electronic version of a poster on a bill board, its gradually changing.

And Eu companies are even worse, a few years back I suggested a link from a German parents website to the uk subsidiary and was told the Head office lawyers where checking to see if they "where allowed" to add a link.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#135
post #75

I guess as they've gone bust I can tell this story now ... I used to consult for Thomas Cook about 15 years ago, and they were a basketcase of a company even back them, so this doesn't surprise me. I feel sorry for all the reps and workers out in the field and on the planes who will lose their jobs because of the profligacy of the Peterborough head office. Two examples of stupidity stick with me. One was that at the…

This brings back memories... I was the technical half of a two person team who built the very first Thomas Cook website in 1995. Of course, e-commerce was a step too far at the time, but there was much excitement when the spec for HTML frames came out mid-project (don’t judge).

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#136
post #104
post #75

I guess as they've gone bust I can tell this story now ... I used to consult for Thomas Cook about 15 years ago, and they were a basketcase of a company even back them, so this doesn't surprise me. I feel sorry for all the reps and workers out in the field and on the planes who will lose their jobs because of the profligacy of the Peterborough head office. Two examples of stupidity stick with me. One was that at the…

Most British companies I’ve seen operating appear to be an absolute mess from the inside. It’s funny that the British have the Northern European credibility in business but I don’t think they’re anywhere close as efficient or organised as the Germans or the Dutch. This is just personal experience but I’ve come to realise it seems to be the norm that British management is overall terrible.

From my personal experience: there are huge German companies that are terribly organized. Inefficient or just stupid processes are being kept up out of tradition often headed by some senior who knows it the best and whos decisions are not being questions "because he's/we've been doing it this way for ever now".

Generalizations don't help here. There is idiocy in companies and my feeling is that the bigger they are, the worse it gets.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#137

> Customers at a hotel in Tunisia reported being locked in by security guards as the hotel demanded extra money, fearing it would not be paid by Thomas Cook. This is quite bad behaviour from the hotel. Presumably their business relationship is with Thomas Cook, not the people on holidays? They went as far as grabbing people who jumped a wall in an attempt to get out! More details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-4…

That’s hostage - taking, no?

I have no idea whether this is illegal in Tunisia, but it definitely should be. I hope the hotel gets slapped down hard for this. Let the person who made that call do some time in prison.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#138
post #78

Thomas Cook to cost the taxpayer £100m for the repatriation of Thomas Cook customers - known as Operation Matterhorn. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/business-49770809

In Germany TC is required to insure package tourists for this case. Germany won't pay for their return (or as in this case: the time they'll stay there until the insurance gets them a flight back).

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#139

Guardian reports: > Dozens of charter planes have been brought in from as far afield as Malaysia to assist with the mass airlift. Getting a charter plane has been quite difficult since the 737MAX grounding. Any excess capacity has been soaked up. There have been lots of unusual chartering by airlines that don’t usually charter. Air Canada had been using some, and it’s exceptionally rare for them to not use AC-branded…

Why are extra planes even necessary? There were already return flights planned, right? Why not have those fly anyway? Maybe they're owned by Thomas Cook and the crew won't get paid anymore, but it'd be nice if the government could step in and let those parts of the company continue operating until every is home again. That's much less disruptive than keeping the original planes grounded, and chartering different planes to step in. That's disruptive to two plane crews and the passengers. Continuing as normal would be far less disruptive.

But I'm probably missing some vital piece of red tape. It's usually an insurance issue.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#140
post #104
post #75

I guess as they've gone bust I can tell this story now ... I used to consult for Thomas Cook about 15 years ago, and they were a basketcase of a company even back them, so this doesn't surprise me. I feel sorry for all the reps and workers out in the field and on the planes who will lose their jobs because of the profligacy of the Peterborough head office. Two examples of stupidity stick with me. One was that at the…

Most British companies I’ve seen operating appear to be an absolute mess from the inside. It’s funny that the British have the Northern European credibility in business but I don’t think they’re anywhere close as efficient or organised as the Germans or the Dutch. This is just personal experience but I’ve come to realise it seems to be the norm that British management is overall terrible.

>it seems to be the norm that British management is overall terrible

What an incredibly spurious, over-generalised anecdote.

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