Northern Ireland

More relieved holidaymakers caught up in Thomas Cook collapse arrive back in Belfast

A Thomas Cook aircraft grounded at Belfast International Airport. Picture by Justin Kernoghan/ PhotopressBelfast
A Thomas Cook aircraft grounded at Belfast International Airport. Picture by Justin Kernoghan/ PhotopressBelfast A Thomas Cook aircraft grounded at Belfast International Airport. Picture by Justin Kernoghan/ PhotopressBelfast

HUNDREDS more relieved holidaymakers caught up in the Thomas Cook collapse touched down at Belfast International Airport last night.

In the second day of the repatriation operation, more stranded passengers were brought home to Northern Ireland from Tenerife.

A spokesperson for the airline Jet2 last night said they were assisting in the rescue operation from the Spanish island.

"Jet2.com is helping to bring Thomas Cook customers back home to Northern Ireland, commencing (Tuesday) with a flight from Tenerife to Belfast International Airport.

"We will continue to cooperate with the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) in the coming days."

On Monday night, the first flight bringing passengers home following the collapse of the travel giant business landed at Aldergrove. Around 200 passengers were brought back from Antalya in southern Turkey.

There are among the estimated 6,000 passengers who flew with Thomas Cook from Belfast International Airport in recent weeks and have been affected by the collapse of the travel company.

It announced early on Monday that it had ceased trading after failing to secure a last-ditch rescue deal.

The company was unable to secure the extra £200 million needed to keep the business afloat following a full day of crucial talks with the major shareholder and creditors on Sunday.

More than 100 Thomas Cook staff in Northern Ireland have lost their jobs as a result of the collapse of the 178-year-old tour operator with around 22,000 jobs at risk worldwide.

A review into the collapse was last night criticised as "too little, too late" as a hardship fund was set up for workers losing their jobs.

Thousands of employees were due to be paid next week but now face being laid off without any redundancy pay, the trade union Unite warned.

Thousands of pounds have been raised since the travel giant went out of business, via a GoFundMe crowdfunding platform set up with the help of a branch of Unite.

The union, which represents 3,000 Thomas Cook workers, including cabin crew and engineers, described the British government's announcement that the Official Receiver will conduct a fast-paced review into the demise of Thomas Cook as "too little, too late".

Unite assistant general secretary Diana Holland said: "The thousands of workers who yesterday lost their jobs, and the hundreds of thousands of people who had their holidays cancelled, will draw no comfort from the announcement of a probe by the Official Receiver.

"The collapse of Thomas Cook has not been allowed to happen in other countries as their governments and regulators have mechanisms to stop such a disastrous and immediate collapse as has happened in the UK.

"Radical reform of the UK's financial regulatory system must be an absolute priority to prevent other workers in the future being dumped on the scrapheap without warning, through absolutely no fault of their own."