A furious Thomas Cook customer has blasted the stricken tour operator after she paid £2,000 to book her first ever holiday to Turkey before the firm collapsed.
The customer, who said she was set to travel with her mother and sister in May, hit out at Thomas Cook and warned: ‘I better get my money back or I’ll go off.’
Speaking to an LBC reporter, the woman who was not named, said angrily: ‘I want to see what’s going to happen with my money. I better get it back or I’ll go off. I better get it back I’m telling you.’
Speaking to an LBC reporter, the woman who was not named, said angrily: ‘I want to see what’s going to happen with my money. I better get it back or I’ll go off. I better get it back I’m telling you’
She added: ‘I ain’t amused, I ain’t happy about it either,’ before explaining that her mother had the details of their travel and she was not sure what part of Turkey they were travelling to.
The woman, who said that she had not been contacted directly by Thomas Cook, is one of thousands of travellers in limbo after their holiday plans were scuppered by the firms’ collapse.
The company’s final flight landed in Britain after the travel group collapsed leaving more than 160,000 Britons stranded abroad and a million more customers with cancelled holidays.
More victims of the travel firms’ troubles are Peter Whyman and his fiancée Katy Williams fear their £50,000 wedding in Ayia Napa could be ruined as her terminally ill mother might not be able to fly out for their big day.
They are due to marry on October 2 but the wedding party’s flight to Cyprus and their hotel rooms are now at risk. The bride’s terminally ill mother Carol Milne, 63, may have to miss out on the whole ceremony.
Katherine Mann, 31, a finance worker from Hertfordshire, is trapped in Menorca airport with her partner, civil servant Daniel Hill and their eight-month-old daughter Penelope after a week-long holiday.
The customer added: ‘I ain’t amused, I ain’t happy about it either,’ before explaining her mother had the details of their travel and she was not sure what part of Turkey they were travelling to
Signage at Bristol Airport telling customers that Thomas Cook has gone to the wall and all flights and holidays are cancelled
Their return flight to London was supposed to leave at 11.30am, but a tannoy announcement has told them to ignore official departure times completely.
Meanwhile, a £100million taxpayer-funded fleet of 40 or more jets is today already heading to cities and resorts across Europe, America and Asia to bring thousands of Britons home from more than 50 destinations over the coming fortnight.
Britain’s biggest peacetime repatriation effort, codenamed Operation Matterhorn, will see around 16,000 people flown back to UK airports every day – but some passengers have complained they will land at different airports to the ones they booked.
Holidaymakers stuck in resorts around the world are today waiting for news about how and when they will get home with hundreds queuing at airports for news.
There were tears at Thomas Cook’s Peterborough headquarters today as 9,000 UK staff lost their jobs and 12,000 more around the world are also of work after the world’s oldest and most famous travel operator officially went bust at 2am.
This is the rescue jet, with Thomas Cook livery but operated by a new airline, that has now left New York’s JFK airport headed for Manchester with over 300 passengers on board and will arrive at 5pm today
Lines of grounded airplanes with the Thomas Cook livery are seen at Manchester Airport this morning as the company went bust
The company’s check-in desks at the 20-plus UK airports the business flew from are shut today with all customers with holidays and flights told they are cancelled – but many will not get their money back for months. 600 high street store are also locked up today.
Last-minute talks to try and rescue the ailing firm collapsed last night with nobody willing to service its £1.7billion debt, and the Civil Aviation Authority announced the end for the 178-year-old company in the early hours of this morning.
Boris Johnson today said that the Government had been asked to bail-out the business with £150million of taxpayers’ money but they had refused.
He said: ‘Clearly that’s a lot of taxpayers’ money and sets up, as people will appreciate, a moral hazard in the case of future such commercial difficulties that companies face.’