Where would be the value of the airlines for a potential buyer without the tour operator providing the future passengers? The fleet looks to be aging, Brexit might cut a lot of the traffic rights and interoperability? They know to operate long range to remote places, that's certainly some capability not many others might have. But who will need that without the package passengers? And how will TC carry it's own customers in the future?

Please be careful not to damage this airline's prospects. Although I mentioned that the A330 fleet is ageing, there is plenty of life left in their aircraft, and some very new A321's are included. The 3 country operation has an extensive scheduled route network (From MAN, the UK airline flies schedules to JFK, LAS, SFO, LAX, MCO, SEA, BOS, CUN, plus a host of Caribbean countries. And GOI. All schedules, not charters.

There are many good people working for this company, and they do not need to feel their livelihoods threatened by a host of ill-researched remarks on this thread by people who have little or no knowledge of aviation. And believe me, there are plenty of you out there!

I was thinking about Condor's 767 that are not exactly factory new anymore. And some company's sales perspective is certainly not formed by postings on bulletin boards.

I think you might have answered your own question.

Unfortunately their livelihoods ARE being threatened as I am sure they all too aware. Their employer is being put up for sale
in a cut throat market and it may well not be a happy result for some of them. Been there and got the t-shirt on that one, worked
out for me and most of the pilots but didn't for lots of the company's other staff.

Since just about every news paper, TV news and internet news in W Europe is carrying the news I don't think any comment on here will make the slightest difference to be honest

As ever it will be the accountants, the bankers and the financiers who will decide how this plays out and I suspect most of them wouldn't be able to tell an A380 from a Ju 52/3m

Thomas Cook is an integrated organisation, of airline and holiday resort provision. How they divide up the revenue from an overall holiday between the different areas of the business is up to them. If they are minded to sell the airline part it looks good to divert the profitability in the accounts to that division.

Varying the dividing point between the different divisions of such an integrated business is not new. Back in the 1970s/80s when BA owned airline British Airtours, and tour operators Enterprise and Sovereign, all the margin was credited to the airline side, because the airline-oriented management did not want to give discounts to their own tour operators.

The principal asset of the airline side is the assured business from the holidays. If they sell off the airline that assurance is no longer there, and the continuing holiday operator would have no reason not to buy their airline capacity on the open market. If the airline side is so profitable then their pricing is presumably not the lowest.

Comments that the holiday airlines are a declining market ignore the likes of Jet2, who have made substantial, and financially worthwhile, expansion into exactly this market in recent years, doubtless having scooped up a lot of Thomas Cook's potential along the way. Just a different management style. People have not stopped going to the Mediterranean and elsewhere, far from it.

Capitalism is also about only buying the winning bits, not the losing bits.

German media reports Lufthansa as potential bidder for TC/DE long haul, and Ryanair for the remaining parts now.

Ryanair saying they are interested in the slots only unfortunately. Hopefully it all works out for TCX, can't have another one bite the dust this year. Everything seems to have gone very quiet recently.