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Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

theguardian.com

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Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#221

Post by jackweirdy »

mcv wrote: post #139
Scoundreller wrote: post #23

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 plan…

The planes that have landed in the UK are being impounded by their airports. If an airport is not paid the unpaid fees within 56 days, they are entitled to auction the impounded plane to recover lost costs.

I would suspect airports are very unwilling to let those aircraft go anywhere until all the bills are paid as they might be only guaranteed way of getting money at this point.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#222

Post by blaser-waffle »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #187
mcv wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>One problem with the British upperclass, is that they tend to be educated at private schools like Eton, where they primarily learn confidence. Not limited to the British upper class. It's astounding how far someone can go in life by simply being confident, charismatic, and articulate (and tall) despite being completely full of shit.

This is not limited to the UK

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#223

Post by celticninja »

sverige wrote: post #145
celticninja wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont even know where to start with this comment.

> 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. Having worked with certain interested underwriters from Lloyd's, it was an easy upvote for me.

I agree that in politics that type of idiot is particularly over-represented, however it is unfair to assume this is the case with most managers in the UK. Perhaps it is because I have worked for and with competent UK managers who have no public school background, so the generalisation that this applies to tons of people is inaccurate. I am not defending the Eton educated upperclass just saying that they hardly represent the majority of managers employed in the UK.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#224

Post by pfortuny »

sligor wrote: post #122
arthurfm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Guardian article mentions that hotels have to wait up to 3 months to be paid by the holiday company. I can see why the Tunisian hotel did what they did, but you are correct that their business relationship is with Thomas Cook, not the holidaymakers. Meanwhile, Thomas Cook holidaymakers were anxious that they might be evicted from their hotels or charged again for their holidays. Holiday companies do not normally…

>> I can see why the Tunisian hotel did what they did that's hostage taking, it is a crime, there is no excuse.

This is part of the value added by countries with a clear rule of law, etc.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#225

Post by celticninja »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #155
celticninja wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont even know where to start with this comment.

You can start by agreeing with it. It's not just true, it's the fundamental reason the UK is in the mess it's currently in.

The statement may be correct if it was limited only to Eton educated politicians. As it isn't it is an unfair generalisation on mangers, many of whom are not Eton educated

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#226

Post by tssva »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #43

> 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…

I had something similar happen in Germany in the mid 90's. I was traveling for business and stayed at a hotel which my employer had an account with. My employer was evidently late paying the account. When I and a co-worker went to checkout they wouldn't let us leave until our employer wired them money to settle the full balance of the account. As in this case the local police sided with the hotel.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#227

Post by celticninja »

ubercow13 wrote: post #153
celticninja wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont even know where to start with this comment.

Could you try? As a (maybe naive, not upperclass) British citizen it seems pretty reasonable.

I just think it could be applied to UK politicians who are predominantly privately educated and incredibly out of touch, but it is a stretch to think that most company managers are privately educated. Particularly because in the car of Thomas Cook the CEO is a German educated Swiss man.

Prior to that is was run by a woman, who was not Eton educated. So basically the comment is a generalisation that cannot even be applied to this specific instance.

The only thing it can be applied to fairly is the British political class, who in general would adhere to it.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#228

Post by mcv »

celticninja wrote: post #223
sverige wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Having worked with certain interested underwriters from Lloyd's, it was an easy upvote for me.

I agree that in politics that type of idiot is particularly over-represented, however it is unfair to assume this is the case with most managers in the UK. Perhaps it is because I have worked for and with competent UK managers who have no public school background, so the generalisation that this applies to tons of people is inaccurate. I am not defending the Eton educated upperclass just saying that they hardly repre…

I didn't mean to imply that all UK managers or politicians are like that, just that there's a segment that's coming from these schools that train primarily for confidence rather than competence. And they try to help each other to these positions of power in order to maintain the system.

It's not universal for all UK politicians and managers, and it's not unique to the UK, but their system of mediocre elite schools that seems to train specifically for confidence, does make it more blatant.

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#229

Post by whenchamenia »

Scoundreller wrote: post #199
greglindahl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to Hacker News! Lots of startups have gotten to within two weeks of closing, and then didn't close.

And plenty have insta-shutdown and said “ooops, sorry about all your data. We regret not telling you sooner (not that we would have). Here’s the address of our $350/hr insolvency firm (which will be deducted from any compensation). Good luck!”

If you are lucky you can find out who bought your data to recover and/or destroy for a hefty tag, and wonder if it was copied and sold adittionally...

Re: Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers

#230

Post by rwmj »

theboulevardier wrote: post #204
tpmx wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suddenly Google's ad profits make a lot more sense.

If you go with Google's suggestions when you setup an Adwords campaign, they will absolutely rinse your budget with minimal return. Google has a churn and burn mentality when it comes their Adwords customers as most new businesses fail within 12 months.

Absolutely. Two things I remember (from back in 2005) were:

Campaigns defaulted to worldwide. You've got some naive new user selling for example hand painted dolls to a UK audience. They sign up for AdWords, and get a huge influx of visitors, yet nobody is buying. Why? Because the website doesn't and cannot sell to all these new US and worldwide visitors. The thing is the seller is an expert in dolls, not SEO, and has no idea what is going on.

You can set a daily limit on ad spend, which is nice, but it means that your advertizing works really well for that niche midnight - 5am visitor profile, but doesn't actually bring in local buyers who are awake at normal times. Again, the naive AdWords users usually have no logging or stats (and if they do they wouldn't necessarily know how to interpret it) so they don't understand what is going on.

I hope Google have fixed these two things, but I'm sure there are plenty of other traps.

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