Plus Lufthansa sniffing around Condor Flug to reacquire it ?

LH once wholly owned Condor from the 1960's until the TCK group eventually bought it in the 2000's

Chris Mottershead who is the head of Thomas Cook’s UK business used to work for TUI in Russia, maybe a link?

G-TCXD (N969AV)
 

Thomas Cook's newest airframe has just landed in AUH as AV4950

AV4950

Due to be in service in June so I imagine it will be getting refitted in AUH before it's entered into service.

Also according to another forum, 3 more Airbus A321S are due in Q4 2019, 2 from Germania, 1 from WOW.

More of an update rather than any new developments but I wonder what if anything will come from this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48004555

TF-GMA, HB-JOI and D-ASTE are all going to be re-registered as G-TCVE, F and G respectively.

Can anyone concur that TCK Premium is any good for LGW-CPT ? I have seen a review that dinner is a cold sandwich in Premium!
Next March 2020 they have o/w seat for £450 (night flight) yes, a great price with 30 kgs of bags.
seems row 7 back row of cabin - I gather full recline - a good seat

I am sailing back on Cunard QM2.

Been to CPT many times over past 20 odd years - VS747/A340 and BA 747/777 and SAA 747 - all classes flown.

Thanks in advance for any comments R.

Thanks very much - the flight next March is empty ATM - end of the season as no inbound really

Smartlynx NCL
 

Tcx have not renewed the damp lease on the A320 YL-LCO ex NCL in 2019, probably because of poor reliability in 2018.
G-TCDZ arrived overnight from EMA as the 2nd A321 for Summer 2019 the other remaining as G-TCDV with the old Monarch belly livery.

Cant say anyone who ended up on Smartlynx or Avion at Newcastle for the best part of 10 years will be too fussed its gone, woeful reliability and nothing onboard at all you would expect booking with a company like Thomas Cook.TCX loss is TUI and Jet2s gain at NCL with them taking onboard everyones cancelled holidays after they were already booked on routes to be operated by 3rd party this year. The monarch A321 is TCVD :ok:

Flew STN-ACE on 15th April, prepaid for legroom seats based on their A320 seat plan. On the flight date however, the aircraft was an A321 as the Smartlynx A320 was not ready to be based at STN. Crew gave me a card and told me to write in and complain. Whilst in ACE, I contacted TCX to ensure seats were correct for the return as I was advise by the crew that the A321 would be operated again. TCX told me I had purchased normal seats based on their seat plan and had simply no understanding that when I booked, the seat plan was an A320 and that now when looking, the seat plan is an A321. The upshot is, TCX were not interested and told me to pay again for leg room seats if I wanted them and they would refund me the original seats. I did this but it cost me £50 instead of the original £20 (for 2 seats).

Travelling TCX STN-CFU in September for my wedding so I hope they don't screw up again.....

Smartlynx are doing nothing but cause problems for TCX at the minute, fingers crossed it's sorted for your trip in September.

In other news (MAYBE SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC), https://www.transat.com/en-CA/corpor...eleases/124217 Air Transat has announced it is up for sale, considering they work closely with Thomas Cook already, who are also controversially up for sale, anybody else think there could be a tie-up with the Fosun group pulling the two together, much like Sunwing/TUI?

USERNAME_
 

The TUI group is one company also being put forward as one of the interested parties.
I would not put it that Transit is up for sale, but it has had some expressions of interest.

I'll eat my hat if TUI went in for them considering the recent reductions in the Nordics and 3rd party flying they employ in the UK. Not to mention their entirely Boeing fleet....

Please note that my reference to TUI was to the post by USERNAME_, this with regards to Transit and not them buying Thomas Cook.

Wouldn't be too much of a problem in the UK at least
I'm pretty sure those with the Sunshine tail, would love the challenge, they already kicked TCX down to 3rd in the Atol's and on course in the next few years to top TUI. On that basis (by the time the propsed merger goes through), they'd need the combined strength to compete

A bit late... but we recently did Premium on MAN-JFK return. Very reasonable and perfectly comfortable for 7 hours.

The return was overnight at 22:00. There was a cold sandwich served after take off, and a hot breakfast 1.5 hours out of MAN. We'd had a full meal at JFK, so it was perfect for us.

However would Lufthansa be barred from buying TC? In Germany that would lead to LH having too great a share of that domestic market, but it doesn't appear to have stopped them gobbling up the competition so far.

I suspect that the UK CMA would look upon a merger of TUI and TC in a similar vein as the way they did when squashing the ASDA / Sainsburys merger; and I think for same reasons they'd be quite right to do so.

Can anybody please confirm the full number of seats - all classes - that MT have on the MAN-JFK/SFO flights?

Many thanks

SD

Bmi / BA went through because everyone understood Bmi was losing lots of money every year and Lufthansa would subside Bmi no more. Virgin's bid for Bmi was not taken seriously as a viable long-term business plan (or they didn't offer Lufthansa enough money) so it was either a BA takeover or Bmi closing

Is Thomas Cook (either the airline or the travel agency) at risk of closure in the next 6 months ?

I'm not sure how a merger of Thomas Cook Airlines and TUI Airways would have relevance on high street shops. It would only become relevant if there was a merger of the tour operation, which looks highly unlikely.

Thomas Cook is likely to become a specialist hotel operator (Casa Cook etc), with its own tour operation. Fosun is said to be interested in buying this - they already own Club Med who operated on a similar model. It isn't dependant on an airline for its tour operation, and neither would Thomas Cook.

The real problem is the fleet.
Condor have a fleet of 20+ year old A320, B757-300 and B767-300 which will need replacing soon.
Thomas Cook UK and Scandinavia have a slightly more modern fleet of 15 year old A320 and A330, and younger A321ceo.
Any new owner will be investing in an airline group where significant capital costs of fleet replacement will be required in the fairly near future.

Lufthansa may be interested in purchasing Condor and running it alongside Eurowings with a more modern A320/A330 fleet mix. But the existing Condor fleet will not bring any efficiencies. Apart from a few airport slots at FRA and MUC, there seems little benefit from what could be achieved by simply internally growing Eurowings.
Virgin may be interested in some of the A330 long-haul leisure routes, but the short-haul fleet is less appealing. The market is now dominated by easyJet and Ryanair who have their own order books of next generation Neo and Max aircraft, so little need for a non-standard A321ceo fleet. Again there is a slot holding at LGW and MAN, but nothing worth the big price tag of buying a whole airline.

So the other alternative is an investment group such as Indigo Partners. These companies are purely looking for a short term return on investment. I'm not sure they would see value in purchasing an aged fleet requiring a large future investment in fleet renewal. Particularly, when they will have no reliable income stream once the tour operator is divested from the airline.

The paragraph concerning Indigo Partners themselves is hardly the case.

Indigo are not `flippers` it would appear witness their investment in Wizz Air & Frontier amongst others.

TCX or any airline investment come to that could become a recipient operator of part of the 430 Airbus MoU that Indigo Partners obtained.

Cheers for that R

Lufty may still want Condor for the name - The Germans like it, it is a strong brand in Germany, and LH had it once - maybe LH do buy Condor, and then rename Eurowings to Condor ?

Stranger things have happened

Eurowings must be about due for another makeover, it must be all of two years since the last one!!

In a leisure market where which carrier you fly on still carries some weight, renaming Eurowings as Condor may be a very smart move.

The cost of acquiring rights to the Condor name may be modest. The cost of rebranding Eurowings to Condor and communicating that message across Europe will be high. The Germanwings brand was replaced by Eurowings partly to allow for neutral brand expansion (and yes, also to cut staff salaries)

There would need to be a very compelling reason for rebranding Eurowings to Condor to outweigh the costs involved