Thomas Cook Group : Game Over






Thomas Cook was born November 22, 1808 in Melbourne in Derbyshire. The carrier organizes on July 5, 1841 a train trip from Leicester to Loughborough for 500 travelers attending a rally of the British Temperance League.

The story of organized travel begins: Thomas Cook organizes in 1845 the first trips to Liverpool and in 1855 the first trips across Europe for British tourists. From London, the route goes through Brussels, Cologne, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Strasbourg, Paris, Le Havre, Lille or Dieppe. At the age of 30, in 1864, John Mason Cook joined his father in business. He deals in 1866 with the first trip to America. In 1868, Thomas Cook introduced an important ingredient for any organized trip: hotel coupons.

On November 22, 2011, the Thomas Cook share lost 75.19% of its value on the stock market, which brings to 95% the decline of the share price since the beginning of 2011. In cause a postponement of the publication of the results of the company because of discussions with the creditor banks of the company. The company has already issued three warnings on results since the beginning of 2011 and also the departure of its CEO in August 20111.

In the 2010s, Thomas Cook suffers from competition from cheap travel websites. In addition, Brexit worries some of the British, which discourages them from sightseeing. In the first half of 2019, the company reported a loss of 1.5 billion pounds, on a turnover of about 10 billion. In the week of 16 to 22 September, creditors asked him to find 200 million pounds of additional funding for an already accepted 900 million-pound rescue plan led by China's largest shareholder, Fosun International, to be validated. . Negotiations are being conducted throughout the weekend of 21-22 September, but the company goes bankrupt, having failed to find the more than 200 million pounds of fresh money.

At the time of its bankruptcy, Thomas Cook is the oldest active tour operator in the world2. It has 22,000 employees.


The bankruptcy of Thomas Cook forces the authorities of different countries to repatriate more than 600 000 holidaymakers in the world. For the United Kingdom alone, there are more than 150,000 tourists to repatriate, forcing the UK government and the Aviation Authority to launch the largest operation in the history of civilian repatriation in peacetime , nicknamed "Operation Matterhorn" (in reference to a US bombing campaign of the Second World War



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