Member Info for airbus330

That is the statement that the BoD put out. I think that you need to read between the lines that the line of credit is currently not secured until the Strategic Review of the airlines is complete.....and a disposal to reduce group debt is agreed. IMHO no airline sale will prevent further borrowings.

Because the background situation is not the same. The Brexit issues was not there, There isn’t a David Cameron shouting out that this company shouldn’t be allowed to fail. The BOD are worse than the ones that drove it into a wall last time. There was still things of value to be sold then, selling the airline is the last ditch attempt to clear debt. After that there is nothing of value apart from the name. Trust me, as far as personnel are concerned the axe was fallen so many times, it’s like a ghost town in some areas. That’s why Citi judge it as zero value, it’s a desiccated carcus of a company, bled dry.

Surprised by the amount of small trades in the last 30 mins. Lots of PI's taking a punt. This has reached the 2010/11 levels now and it did recover. Will it do it again or are is the trading environment just too bad to come back from this time?

MrMagoo's analysis is largely correct on the operation of the business. IT is wafer thin margins, pile it high-sell it cheap business. The BoD have got a plan, the Cooks Club and Casa Cook brands are taking the brand upmarket and trying to access the higher spend client. ie they are trying to steal some of TUI's pie. At the same time J2 is stealing TC's pie and doing it with a lower cost base and with great efficiency. (Whether J2 can ultimately escape the same fate as TC is a good debate). The airline has been given greater freedom to explore new money making routes, and it has proven successful especially on the long haul side. But again, margins are painfully thin and competition fierce. West coast USA for £300? Return? Jesus, I paid more than that to fly to Glasgow a decade ago. So, they are going in the right direction but some things can't be cost cut (safety for example) and some things are out of their control. In this case 10 years of stagnant wage growth, Brexit (leading to cash strapped clients not spending) and (to a lesser extent) hotter summers. I say it again, with wafer thin margins, a lack of customers booking will (and evidently have) cause cash to hemorrhage like a fountain. All eyes on the upcoming trading statement, as that will tell us if TCG can turn itself around within the headroom of a 400m overdraft.

Jed, of course income is on the up, this is the time of year in the cyclical IT business that people pay the balance of holidays booked in the winter for summer 19 and people buy and pay for late booked holidays. The forward bookings for W19 and even S20 will also start to trickle in. This is entirely normal. The unknown (at least until 16/5) is the level of bookings being taken up and paid for.
You are gambling here on the Airline Sale, a Bid for the whole lot, a break up and sale of parts, the money running out before any or all of the above has occurred. The 400m is headroom, but if taken up adds to the total debt, but that is an issue for end of the year, when the money being taken in now is spent and we enter the lean winter again.

It is fascinating that Sky has broke TCG news twice in the last week or so. The rest of the reporting is largely a regurgitation of the initial sky report. Is someone leaking from head office on purpose? Or is it a hack with a friend in the office?

Well there you go, debt potentially up another 400 million. What would that make the total? 2 billion plus! This company and its shares are sinking in a pile of faeces of their own making.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/struggling-thomas-cook-flies-towards-123000884.html

Jj.. nail ?? head
I read it the same way.
Something is brewing up more quickly than I was led to believe. And I suspect the next trading update will be the reason for the current fall.

that article is "has led many customers to press pause on their holiday plans for this summer."

This share is, and has been since HG left. Up down up down!
I bought last week and sold today with a 17% profit which I’m more than satisfied with. If you put money here it is punting a larger version of Flybe and you saw how that panned out. It’s all about the debt.

You are absolutely correct @BigDano. But that is an awfully big bill the business is going to foot to replace those ancient (and I do mean ancient) 767's. Personally, I think it is too big an ask for any German airline (or any other nationality) to take on except for Lufthansa. I doubt, however, that selling Condor and keeping the rest is a viable gameplan.

The airline sale is going to be a slow process IMHO, extremely unlikely to find anyone who will buy all 4 airlines outright, so looking for individual buyers. Condor/Lufthansa is the most obvious, but is wrought with monopoly issues in Germany. UK airline is a bitsa, at least 2 people have looked at it, the Long haul being more attractive than the rest of it. Scandi? Who knows, its another world up there. Balearics? No track record, probably worthless. On top of that the Long Haul fleet for Condor and TCUK are up for a very expensive renewal programme which cannot be kicked into the long grass for much longer. This is a big complex potential sale only and will take ages to work through.

A well argued post. Only problem is that all the component parts which make up the current TCG, are failed vertically integrated tour ops companies. Airtours, MyTravel, JMC etc. The idea is logical but doesn't seem to work in practice.Even to best example, TUI, seems vulnerable to external events. I suspect smaller and less exposed might be the right way forward, as the current board seem to be going.

Who is it selling its airline to? I thought that was in the review stage, not a done deal. Unless you know different?

Sorry, that's factually incorrect. TCG had an experiment with Easy a few years ago which didn't pan out. They have ebbn using ACMI aircraft in their own colours increasingly, but even that has been on top of a short haul fleet renewal and expansion over the last 4 years. They have also started 2 new airlines in Majorca and Germany to bring the ACMI operations under their own control and reduce costs. The charter side (flying the tour group customers) operation will always need to be flexible with some 3rd party airframes being used in the summer, but TC have clearly tried and succeeded in bring this in house to a large extent. The complexity of running a huge tour operation without your own airline to guarantee seats and seat prices is a huge worry for anyone invested in TC.

I agree with the premis you put forward regarding TCG and Brexit. But you are factually incorrect about the TC fleet. Most of the SH aircraft are in house, the programme is bolstered by 3rd. party operators, mostly in the summer season. The SH UK fleet has been almost completely renewed with new A321 in the last few years. TC Balearics was recently created to provide an in-house 3rd. party airline (!) but the operation has yet to expand to replace the LY operators due to start up problems.

The airframes are mostly leased, the very old ones which were owned have been disposed of, I'm not sure of the current ownership status of the current Condor fleet, but it is not particularly relevant anyway. The value in the airlines is not in the hardware, it is in the business, which is profit making, in fact very profitable if there hadn't been such chaotic management. Suggest you read the small print of the annual results to see where money was wasted. Sale of the airlines to offset group debt has been well discussed, but is currently discounted by the BoD.

If you have genuinely been topping up on each drop in price, I would suggest that you keep a very close eye on the state of the UK and German holiday bookings over the next 3 months as the IT business enters peak booking time. TCG will stand or fall (or at least fall meaning a re-financing again, wiping out shareholder value). The airlines are doing OK and are the family silver which could be sold to prop up the group, but unless TCG can sell lots of holidays, its going to be in a very precarious position this time next year. Unfortunately, the geopolitics of Europe/Brexit and even the weather, might be against us.

No, its not fake news. I have a copy of the original pic when it was first noticed, but can't post it here. The Mirror photo has been altered, but if you come across the aircraft with its service door open, it still works. Hang around Manchester Airport long enough and you'll see it. Happy Christmas

Sorry Dropzone, the BoD have already got that one covered
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/thomas-cook-plane-turns-x-13369427