Taxpayers face huge bill following Thomas Cook collapse | News

Taxpayers facial area a bill of at least £156 million for the response to the collapse of Thomas Prepare dinner.

According to a report from the Nationwide Audit Office, the govt will be predicted to fork out £83 million to the price tag of getting prospects back residence, as nicely as £58 million in redundancy and similar payments.

Other costs include things like at least £15 million for liquidating the business.

Having said that, the price tag the final is not nevertheless known.

The tour operator collapsed past September still left 9,000 personnel out of function and a hundred and fifty,000 holidaymakers stranded.

Adhering to the shutdown , the division for transportation instructed the Civil Aviation Authority to repatriate all a hundred and fifty,000 Thomas Prepare dinner prospects who ended up stranded abroad.

This incorporated approximately 83,000 who experienced not booked a vacation with ATOL protection, which intended they ended up not instantly entitled to be flown residence free of demand.

The division for transportation is reimbursing the price tag of repatriating those travellers.

A division for transportation spokesperson reported: “Due to the unprecedented scale of the operation, other airlines did not have enough capability to repatriate those abroad.

“Without this energy, stranded travellers could not be guaranteed a safe and sound journey residence, resulting in strain and disruption to family members, which would have experienced a knock-on result on the wider economy with so a lot of staff members abroad.”

A overall of 746 flights from fifty four airports ended up involved in the repatriation energy, known as Procedure Matterhorn.

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See the full report from the Nationwide Audit Office listed here.