Egypt4u

So it looks as if Thomas Cook is having lots of problems today, share prices plunged from 200 pence each to 13 pence each after trying to re schedule its overdraft. It is doubtful if it will collapse and people who have flights booked will be OK, but it does emphasise the downturn in tourism generally. So as many of us have being predicting, the worst is yet to come and those who keep seeing the green shoots of recovery in Egyptian tourism may soon be in for a shock as reality starts to hit home. At the moment they are being hit by the cheap flight operators and people booking online to arrange their own holidays, but it does show how much all of this Arab Spring action is impacting upon tourism in the area as this is where they are reporting the loss of bussiness which has created the need to extend the bank overdraft. I am sure that they will pull through as generally speaking they are a very viable company, they may have to get shut of a few high street shops and cut back somewhat, but they will survive.

It would be a sad day if Thomas Cook succombed but with debts of £900M and a very lean order book, the signs are not good. I doubt if the banks will continue to support them much longer with additional overdrafts.

They have already shed some of the burden by offloading some of their aircraft and have plans to close around 200 high street travel shops, but will this be enough?

The 'original package holiday' arranger, Thomas Cook started from small beginnings in 1841 and became the biggest and best known travel operator in the world. I hope they can see this rough patch through........

Another casualty that I read about today is Astraeus Airline. I have flown with them and they were a very nice little operation who, apart from holiday charter work, found a niche in regular direct flights to Aktau in West Kazakhstan. The normal route was via Moscow.

Although they had reduced their fleet they have also closed operations and gone into receivership.

Any old Iron Maiden fans will know that one of their pilots was Bruce Nicholson, singer with Iron Maiden.........

Any updates? have heard nothing here re: TC going bust.

They were given a £200 million loan to see them through until next year, so lets hope that helps them pull through the bad times, although from what I can see the bad times are just beginning.