Why does the mail pick on My Travel

[keepitlit]

I am afraid its got to the stage where Im fed up with the Daily Moaner/Sunday Moaner(Mail)continuing slate my travel.
What is their beef?
Just as Mytravel start to heal their wounds (having had the Sh*te kicked out of it by the press) the moaner goes and runs a cost exercise with My travel as the expensive tour Company!
Why was there no reference to any of the others or their prices?

I do work in the industry but not for the above company,just one with friends who do.

So can any of the moaner employees who read this site to try and shaft someone in their trial of distruction take a minute to answer these simple questions.

What has My Travel done to the moaner?

Oh and dont write any Bo**ocks about it being in the interests of Joe Punter :yuk:


Rdgs K.I.L.

[GS-Alpha]

The paper in question just does not like British airlines full stop. The amount of garbage they write about the airline I work for makes me realise that the paper is written by only partially informed people and therefore is not worth reading. I use the word "partially" far too generously by the way.

[Tiger]

Like wise from the posting from Alpha.

and I still wonder why airlines hands it out to their paxs and advertises holidays, flights and jobs!

The "paper" (note: not used news) I always think is for part time/ non working middle class women in the home counties.

[newswatcher]

In my experience, it is not just restricted to the Mail, since the press seem to think it "open season" on MyTravel at present, due to the disastrous perfomance of certain senior management over the last year or so.

If you are referring to the cost comparison on package v independent holidays, since MyTravel is probably the largest carrier, then it is likely that their figures will be used as a comparison. I was more concerned that this particular report did not consider "like for like", in that the comparison hotels were described as "of similar class" or words to that effect. In one example - La Manga, you would be hard pressed to find a similar hotel to the Hyatt!!

I can actually confirm their findings with respect to a holiday we have just taken in Tenerife over Easter. Booked last August, we got the all-inclusive Bahia Principe for 140Euros a room for a fortnight. We travelled with Iberia, at 175GBP for each return ticket(inc tax etc). We had to pay our own transfers and put up with stopovers in either Barcelona or Madrid on each leg. The cost of this (at 1.4euros/GBP) was 875GBP each. MyTravel, through their Direct subsidiary, wanted nearly 1200GBP each for exactly the same dates and duration!

[Viscount Sussex]

I've been told that a reporter (previously) employed by The Mail wrote an article (apparently not very accurate) about the old company (Airtours). Airtours allegedly took legal action and that cost this reporter his job. Now his mates in the Mail want blood. The guy that lost the job is now with The Guardian (so I am told), hence the constant articles from the other paper about MyTravel.
What do you think?
:confused:

[kinsman]

Viscount Sussex, The story is apparently true regarding the reporter now with the Gaurdian!

These guys really should make up their minds, one month we are selling holidays at vastly discounted rates then we are very expensive. Answer is they really don't have a clue otherwise why would they work for the Mail? I don't buy the Mail so did not see this story but it sounds the sort of poor story they would run.:ok:

[Lazlo]

MyTravel gets picked on because a lot of people lost a lot of money with their shares. This is also somewhat true of the other operators but the story with MyTravel was certainly "juicier" because of the Arthur Andersen connection.

I saw a similar article in one of the other papers a couple of days ago but it compared Thomson holidays vs DIY holidays and it came to a similar conclusion, so it isn't just MyTravel that are getting a raw deal, its really any big company. However, they were comparing "brochure prices" vs internet deals with low-cost carriers etc. Well, who ever pays full brochure price for a holiday these days? Everyone knows that the brochure price is artificially inflated so that the tour operators can give the impression of big discounts in their "summer sales". This is just the way the market works and when Thomson tried to change that a couple of years back they got their fingers burnt. The paying customer wanted to think they were getting a "deal" regardless of what it was they actually paid in the end. Never mind that the brochure price was lowered to a realistic value.

It was pretty obvious that it was a slow news week last week. But now Al-Q has reared its head (supposedly) again they are more interested in airplanes and missiles this week. Next week it will be something else. SARS will be back to kill us all. Or maybe we are all going to die in poverty because our pensions are crap. Or maybe George Bush will decide to invade Syria. Or West Nile virus will reach Europe. There's always something just around the corner.

Just ignore the press - they are always wrong.

Lazlo

[rupetime]

Is it because of the appauling way MYT handle their accounting black hole's, board room re-shuffle's, capacity slashing, rebranding on rebranding all reasonably news worthy ?

Dont shoot me down in flames all you paranoid myt drivers - the ? at the end of the sentence shows its a question not my own views.

[HugMonster]

K.I.L. - just as well they're not like us - cos we know where you live, son! :)

[kinsman]

Rupetime

Consider yourself shot! The boys will be round to break your legs later! Not for daring to suggest the MYT board got it wrong but for calling us paranoid.

Remember just because your paranoid does not mean the world is not against you!

As it happens we appear no worse off than some others but then again we don't want to get started on that one again. :D

[A4]

Rupetime,

I agree that perhaps MYT's PR dept has been a bit lacking, but the company was effectively gagged whilst the accounts were being audited, so it was unable to say much more than it did at the time. This may still be the case as the refinancing talks continue but one thing for sure is that the new board are taking positive measures to try to reverse the decline of the company.

Stategic review from top to bottom, job cuts, cost savings, capacity reduction, proper accounting practice, dialogue with the banks, refinancing plans to give the company time turn things around etc etc . It just gets very "tiresome" when no matter what you do or say, certain elements of the press seem intent on doing their absolute best to ALWAYS take the negative stance and publish as damaging a headline as they can think up (even if only about 10% of it is actually relevant).

MYT is one of only two UK owned tour operators - so why does it seem that great bastion of Britishness, the DM, is intent on doing as much as possible to ensure that 15,000 UK people loose their jobs? Is there another agenda?

I almost can't wait for next weeks interims, which are quite obviously not going to be brilliant (tour operators ALWAYS run at a loss in the winter). It will be interesting to see how it gets reported in the media. I think the same results last year were about £150 million loss for the first 6 months - theoretically this years will be worse due to the new accounting practices. But MYT have had a busy winter so we shall see.

A4 :)

[kinsman]

A4

I think our figures for the winter will be terrible even worse than last year! My guess is it will be timed to coincide with the news of a secured refinancing package to soften the blow. All in all not a good time to buy MYT shares but I believe the worst is behind us at last! Much of the loss will be down to all the changes made to put the company back on the path to recovery. No doubt the papers like the mail and that little fat man on the BBC will tell us how badly we are doing but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs!

I also believe that the worst is yet to come for some others such as TUI. After all many of the old Airtours board are now working for them in the UK! I think the next year will see TUI and a few others suffer the similar traumas to MYT. Not going to be a good year in this industry.

[Hwel]

Of course there is always the possibility that other interested parties are taking journos out for lunch and briefing against MYT. Of course that sort of thing never happens:eek:

[keepitlit]

:ooh: and the truth is finally comin out

Rgds K.I.L.

[notice]

Not defending the journos and MT may be their current target but the charter concept must be declining for many reasons inc:
-many more scheduled and low(er) cost services
-more people making their own arrangements

[Splat]

Don't start me on the Mail.

My kids go to a school that a young girl was tragicaly killed by a falling tree earlier this year. Suffice to say that it made the national press, but the one group of journos that stood out ABOVE all other for the disrespectfull way that they went about reporting, and gathering information was the Mail. You can just imagine the grief of the parents loosing an eight year old child in those circumstances, but that did not stop them. Disgusting.

Since then, I've made it a personal policy NEVER to buy that paper ever again, and I tell anyone that wants to hear my views and why.

S

PS - feel free to delete is too close to the mark.