Sad fate of Thomas Cook

It was somewhat sad to see the fate of Thomas Cook, I actually bought shares and sold them again a few times earlier in the year.

They had a series of profits warnings, but actually there were real problems, they had made aquistions funded by debt at the same time as the market for holidays has moved more and more on line.

Having a network of more than 500 shops meant the brand was strong but that is a lot of overheads to cover and using the internet to book your own holidays is mostly what the team in the shops was doing.

A few years ago travel agents were much more about advice and finding a deal, but now with the advent of trip advisor that and the self service nature of sites like loveholidays then their role has basically vanished.

Anyway there is some hope for the 2,500 staff who worked in those stores as Hays travel ltd the UK's largest independent travel agent has now picked up the stores and their staff.

I actually really liked Thomas Cook holidays, their staff and airline but the problem was a holiday to Cuba cost around £4,000 with them compared to the same deal online coming in at around £2,600

You can see how the situation was earlier in the year and after that it got worse and went bust.