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Thomas Cook passengers wait at Palma airport in Mallorca.
Thomas Cook passengers wait at Palma airport in Mallorca. Photograph: Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images
Thomas Cook passengers wait at Palma airport in Mallorca. Photograph: Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images

'We're fuming': long wait for Thomas Cook travellers in Mallorca

This article is more than 4 years old

Frustration mounts at Palma airport as passengers wait to hear about their journeys home

In Mallorca, while there were few signs of the panic that might have been expected following the collapse of Thomas Cook, frustration was beginning to mount as passengers waited for information.

As the sun came up over the island and Palma airport swelled with passengers, thoughts turned to the likelihood of missing work on Tuesday, to car-park bills, cats that needed feeding, and to a further delay in securing a decent cup of tea.

Natasha Brown had flown from Newcastle to Mallorca to celebrate a friend’s birthday. By mid-morning on Monday, they were digging in for a long wait.

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The history of Thomas Cook

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Thomas Cook owes its name to a humble and deeply religious 32-year-old cabinet-maker who, one June morning in 1841, hiked the 15 miles from his home in Market Harborough to Leicester, to attend a temperance meeting.

The former Baptist preacher believed that the ills of Victorian society stemmed largely from alcohol and, presumably fatigued from his walk, realised he could deploy the power of Britain’s flourishing rail network to help spread the word.

Addressing the temperance meeting, he suggested that a train be hired to carry the movement’s supporters to the next meeting in Loughborough.

Thus, on 5 July 1841, some 500 passengers travelled by a special train for the 24-mile round trip, paying a shilling apiece.

Over the next few years, Cook laid on ever more trains, introducing thousands of Britons to train travel for the first time. The first such outing to be run for commercial purposes was a trip to Liverpool in 1845.

Over the next decade or so, the business expanded to offer overseas trips, to France, Switzerland, Italy and beyond, to the US, Egypt and India.

His more business-minded son John expanded the tour operator and its reach was such that the government enlisted its expertise in an effort, ultimately in vain, to relieve General Gordon at the siege of Khartoum in 1885.

John’s three sons inherited the business, which incorporated as Thos Cook & Son Ltd in 1924 and benefited from the increasing ease of international travel.

Its first flirtation with collapse came during the second world war, when the government requisitioned some of its assets and it was sold to Britain’s railway companies, effectively a nationalisation.

But it boomed in the postwar years as growing prosperity fuelled the appetite for holidays and it returned to private ownership in 1972.

Since then, it has changed hands and changed shape via a series of mergers and takeovers. It nearly collapsed in 2011 but averted its demise with a bailout deal funded by banks.

Now, after 178 years of operation, it has ceased trading.  

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“They have not got any information on the Newcastle flight,” she said. “Atol [the UK holidaymakers’ protection scheme] have no information but some people are saying it could now be at 9pm.”

She said she had heard nothing from Thomas Cook and had been worried that the hotel might try to get guests to pay the bills owed by the travel company – as had happened in Tunisia.

Thomas Cook holidaymakers at Palma airport. Photograph: Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images

“We didn’t check out until the transfer came this morning because we didn’t want what happened in Tunisia to happen to us.

“But at least we had a good week’s holiday. We’re going to get compensation and there are worse places to be stuck.”

Brown also said she had been touched by the grace and professionalism shown by people who knew their jobs were going.

“The two reps on the coach thanked us all for the holidays we had taken with Thomas Cook,” she said.

“And then they started to cry.”

Jodie Morgan and her friend Emma Handford, two senior support workers from Pontefract, summed up their treatment by Thomas Cook in a single word: “Shit.”

Morgan had rung the company at 8am on Saturday to see if their flights home would be affected and had been told everything would be fine.

“We’re fuming,” said Morgan.

“I can’t explain how I’m feeling – angry, upset. You’re just waiting to find out whether you’ll get home.”

Despite the heavy deployment of hi-vis-jacketed Atol and Foreign Office staff, information and updates were in frustratingly short supply.

Like most passengers, Wendy Hiscocks from south Wales had woken to the news that Thomas Cook had gone under.

“It was all OK till we woke up this morning and found out what had happened,” she said. “But we had checked in before we got here. It’s been fine. The transfer turned up and so did the rep.”

She was hopeful of making the 10.30am flight to Birmingham and thinking of what the news would mean for all those Thomas Cook employees.

“What can you do? And it’s such a shame for the poor people who have lost their jobs.”

John Marszol, an offshore worker from Glasgow, was similarly philosophical.

He and his partner, Donna, had been due to take the 10.30am flight home to Glasgow, but the flight was pushed back to 7.40pm on Monday – and rerouted to Manchester.

“When I checked this morning, it said the flight was going to leave for Birmingham at 10.30,” said Marszol.

“The Atol lassie said it’s going to fly into Manchester now and I’ve got no information on the transfer. We need to know. I didn’t bring my driving licence so we can’t hire a car at Manchester to drive home.”

He said there had been nothing from Thomas Cook: “You just get directed to the CAA website.”

Still, he added, the pair had had a lovely week away – even if “it was too hot for someone from Scotland”.

With nowhere to go, the couple were focusing on getting someone to feed their three cats.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Thomas Cook could be back as an online travel agent

  • Union calls for inquiry into handling of Thomas Cook collapse

  • Almost £600m worth of holidays cancelled in Thomas Cook collapse

  • One-third of Thomas Cook customers still waiting for refunds

  • Thomas Cook's buyer hires 1,500 extra staff in boost for package holiday sector

  • Ex-Thomas Cook boss denies responsibility for tour firm's collapse

  • Accountancy profession 'complicit in Thomas Cook failure'

  • Thomas Cook: MPs to question PwC on possible conflict of interest

  • Period of debt-fuelled expansion 'may have caused Thomas Cook collapse'

  • Hays Travel owners offer jobs to 2,000 ex-Thomas Cook staff

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