Tour major Thomas Cook goes under

UK’s tour major Thomas Cook stopped trading today after a last-minute push to keep the company going fell through.

The BBC had the news:

Thomas Cook has collapsed after last-minute negotiations aimed at saving the 178-year-old holiday firm failed.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the tour operator had “ceased trading with immediate effect”.

It has also triggered the biggest ever peacetime repatriation, aimed at bringing more than 150,000 British holidaymakers home.

Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook’s chief executive, said the firm’s collapse was a “matter of profound regret”.

Commenting as the company entered compulsory liquidation, Mr Fankhauser also apologised to the firm’s “millions of customers, and thousands of employees”.

The tour operator’s failure puts 22,000 jobs at risk worldwide, including 9,000 in the UK.

CNN’s Clare Duffy and Rob McLean reported thousands of holiday-makers were stranded abroad as a result of the firm’s collapse:

There are more than 150,000 UK outbound Thomas Cook customers abroad, almost twice the number that were repatriated following the failure of Monarch, according to the aviation authority.

“When people get to the end of their holiday, they will be brought back to the UK,” Tim Johnson, head of policy at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, told CNN.

“We’ve chartered 40 planes and we’re going to be running over 1,000 flights over the next two weeks,” he added.

Repatriation flights are only available for passengers whose journey originated in the UK. The aviation authority launched a website where customers can find details on those flights.

“Customers currently overseas should not travel to the airport until their flight back to the UK has been confirmed on the dedicated website,” the aviation authority said in a statement.

Depending on where travelers are located, return flights will be either on flights operated by the aviation authority or by existing flights with other airlines, according to Thomas Cook.

For Thomas Cook travelers abroad on holiday packages protected by the Air Travel Organiser’s Licence, the aviation authority said it will sort out hotel bills.

ATOL is a UK financial protection program that protects most air package holidays sold by UK-based travel businesses.

Josephine Mason reported for Reuters that the agency’s failure had boosted the stocks of competitors:

Thomas Cook’s (TCG.L) collapse boosted shares in TUI (TUIGn.DE) and budget airlines easyJet (EZJ.L) and Ryanair (RYA.I) on Monday as investors pinned hopes on the tour operator’s closure cutting capacity in the saturated European holiday market.

The world’s oldest travel firm went out of business on Monday, stranding some 600,000 holidaymakers around the globe and sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history involving some 150,000 travelers.

At 0725 GMT, rival tour operator TUI was up as much as 8.4% at its highest since February, easyJet was up 6.1% and Ryanair was 2.6% higher, the three top gainers on the pan European STOXX 600 index.

The FTSE 350 travel and leisure index .FTNMX5750 rose to its highest level in almost a year.

“Thomas Cook’s collapse likely brings bad news for holiday makers and UK/German governments, but takes capacity out and likely will boost shares most exposed to its markets,” said one dealer.

In London, Dart Group (DTG.L) which runs package holiday company Jet2holidays was up 8.7% after hitting its highest level since May 21.

FTSE small-cap listed On the Beach (OTB.L) was up 1.6% as hopes it will gain market share offset news the company will book a one-time charge due to the collapse.

“The removal of Thomas Cook’s capacity from the market should be positive for pricing in the short term, over the forthcoming winter season,” Liberum analysts said in a note.