Sad day for the travel industry.

So Monday saw the biggest collapse within our beloved travel industry as package holiday giants Thomas Cook sadly could not raise the £200 million required to keep them trading. I started our learning my trade with Thomas Cook 16 years ago at their head office working in their cruise department. There was always such a buzz in the office and I very quickly fell in love with the travel industry and will always be grateful for the time I spent there.

I am sure there aren’t many of us travel industry workers that have not spent some time working for them, and sadly, there are now 9000 travel professionals that woke up Monday morning to the news that their employers had gone bust and they no longer had employment. I have been reading lots of nice things that companies within the industry are doing to try and get these people back into employment as soon as possible. Being based in “Thomas Cook” town – Peterborough, I even read of a local taxi firm offering free taxis to take the recently unemployed to job interviews, free of charge!

We are holding a couple of webinars, open to all ex Thomas Cook employees, on Thursday, as we try and employ some of those who have recently lost their jobs as soon as possible, especially so close to Christmas.

For now, the massive job of getting all those stranded overseas is priority number 1 for the travel industry with the Civil Aviation Authority sending aircraft all over to bring back those currently on their holidays with Thomas Cook. All those due to travel with them will be ATOL protected if booked the correct way, so should have nothing to worry about.

For those booked on Thomas Cook flights as part of a P&O fly-cruise package, I know P&O are currently working on alternative flights and the details will be forwarded on once these have been confirmed.