* Johnson questions bosses' pay ahead of collapses
* Johnson says taxpayer has had to foot the bill
* British state decided not to bail out Thomas Cook
* UK plans to fly 135,300 people back, 16,500 people today
(Recasts with Johnson)
By Kylie MacLellan and Paul Sandle
NEW YORK/LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - After the collapse of
Thomas Cook left hundreds of thousands of passengers reliant on
the British state to repatriate them, Prime Minister Boris
Johnson questioned whether bosses should have paid themselves so
much ahead of its demise.
Running hotels, resorts and airlines for 19 million people a
year, it currently has around 600,000 people abroad and will
need the help of governments and insurance firms to bring them
home from places as far afield as Cancun, Cuba and Cyprus.
Speaking in New York, Johnson questioned why the state
should be left responsible for the actions of handsomely paid
directors and said tour operators should have some sort of
insurance against such debacles.
"I have questions for one about whether it's right that the
directors, or whoever, the board, should pay themselves large
sums when businesses can go down the tubes like that," Johnson
said.
"You need to have some system by which tour operators
properly insure themselves against this kind of eventuality," he
said.
Thomas Cook was brought down by a $2.1 billion debt pile,
built up by a series of ill-fated deals, that hobbled its
response to nimble online rivals. It had to sell three million
holidays a year just to cover interest payments.
With the business draining cash, Chief Executive Peter
Fankhauser found its lenders were no longer willing to step in.
Fankhauser has earned 8.3 million pounds, including 4.3 million
pounds in 2015.
The British government decided Thomas Cook was a bet it did
not want to take.
Thomas Cook's demise, announced in the early hours of Monday
after failing to secure a deal with creditors or a government
bailout, sparked alarm at hotels where some customers have been
asked to pay their bills again by out-of-pocket resort owners.
"I think the questions we've got to ask ourselves now: how
can this thing be stopped from happening in the future?" Johnson
said.
"How can we make sure that tour operators take proper
precautions with their business models where you don't end up
with a situation where the taxpayer, the state, is having to
step in and bring people home?"
Emergency flights brought 14,700 people back to the United
Kingdom on 64 flights on Monday, and around 135,300 more are
expected to be returned over the next 13 days, Britain's
aviation regulator said.
Seventy-four flights were scheduled on Tuesday, to bring
back 16,500 people. More than 1,000 flights are planned.
"A repatriation of this scale and nature is unprecedented
and unfortunately there will be some inconvenience and
disruption for customers. We will do everything we can to
minimise this as the operation continues," Richard Moriarty,
Chief Executive at the Civil Aviation Authority, said.
"We want people to continue to enjoy their holiday, so we
will bring them back to the UK on their original departure day,
or very soon thereafter."
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by Paul Sandle)
