Hi folks!
I hope i can help with some info for you guys. I am at the moment a travel agent working for Thomas Cook and well what i can say is that we are dam busy! The package holiday market is really starting to get momentum and it dosent look like it is going to stop until the holidays run out which, alot of them are.
We are also begining to take alot of long haul bookings so there is light at the end of the tunnel for the larger carriers too.
What alot of the tour operators which have thier own airline (ie. JMC, Airtours, Thompsons etc) are doing is adding an "air security fee" to all bookings in order to recuperate the lost revenue over the past 5 months!
As for being made redundant, i was paid off in october but started again this week but as i took no redundancy pay so they could hire me straight away however, other colleagues who took redundancy pay, cannot be hired for at least 6 months although we are shouting for staff! Not sure how it works for you but just wanted to add my wee bit!
Anyway hope you find that a little helpfull as to be honest i'd much rather be flying them to bloody Ibiza than just booking them to go there! Chin up, it's picking up!!
Cheers, Kempus