As I repeated above, Thomas Cook isn’t a travel agent, its a tour operator (as stated correctly in The Times article). The difference being that a Tour Operator acts as ‘principal’ on a booking (i.e. they take all the responsibility), and an agent is the reseller of a tour operator. Yes, I do know that Thomas Cook Retail do resell other tour operators, so they do act as an agent in part.
The important part is the ATOL renewal, just as it was with Monarch and we’re at the same time of year when XL went down as well I think about 10 years ago. Just like Monarch, even if the airline does have the option of life independent it could just fall down like a pack of cards. Without the ATOL its likely that everything will go down, although the airline is more attractive as a whole (especially in Germany) than Monarch was.