and Dave Betts tried to take MYT down a different avenue, then all of a sudden he wasn't the MD anymore.

That's it, finished now.:O

Terrific news, all of it. The caterers told me that we were bidding for the retired Space Shuttles! High density, high speed to SSH, where of course there are no noise restrictions!
Must go, I feel a deep night to DLM comi' on....:mad:

Dave Betts? Popular with crew wasn't he?;)

Oh well, didn't see that coming!
Share price lost 25% this morning on the back of a major profits warning. Just goes to show you always need to keep you CV up to date!

Sounds to me like TCX doesn't need pilots, but is in desperate need of more HR executives and management consultants, to introduce a "step change" of exciting new cost cutting initiatives "going forward".:ugh:

charlies angel
 

Sadly, there's all too much truth to that statement. A good operation that does what it says on the tin, and unfortunately can't keep up with the times...

BBC News - Thomas Cook shares plunge on profit warning

Ludicrous
 

Am I the only one who wonders about the sanity of the city pricks in red braces?

The reality is that Thomas Cook have indicated that in light of various perfectly understandable market factors largely beyond their control they expect to make a profit of £320m in a major recession rather than the £380m they expected. To make a profit at all in the current climate is impressive enough.

It hardly warrants a sell off of such magnitude that the share price drops by a third.

I'm afraid these jumped up city analysts need to learn something about business and economics and lay off the boozy lunches a bit. this is what happens when you have a load of barrow boys running things who just follow what the guy sitting next to them is doing like sheep. Frankly the lot of them need to grow a pair.

I don't work for Thomas Cook but I'd like to and it annoys me that having caused the bloody recession, the banking crisis and the liquidity crisis in the first place these ass wipes are over-reacting to every minor trading update.

(3 years Commerce Degree, 12 years blue chip mgt, and the past few years at the controls of an airliner)

DP

Spot on :D

I was about to say that.....:D

How to manage expectations
 

Desk-Pilot,

It is not really about spivs and braces.

Thomas Cook are a PUBLIC company, that accepted money from investors at floatation. They are duty bound to provide ACCURATE guidance to the London Stock Exchange as to how business is progressing.

It can be no surprise that when a business misses the previously stated by profit estimate by 20%, it has a bad effect on the share price.

It is as much about not being able to spout a load of old nonsense to the City - there by preventing asset bubbles - as it is about the City (not) understanding your business.

The facts are that the Chickens are coming home to roost here. Everyone - Thomas Cook included - thought business would be OK. It is not. It is dire. People are skint and they are foregoing their summer holidays.

Thomas Cook have a serious problem in the UK, and the City know it.

Had I still been a trader today, I'd have smashed the share price to pieces as well.

Remove the rose tinted spectacles: If the share price fall was overdone, the fund managers/speculators would have been hoovering up cheap shares all day. They've not been doing that for a good reason. Mainly because the share price fall is NOT an over reaction. On the contrary, there could be further to fall if the economy stays so subdued.

Best regards.

City Trader 1993-1999, Trainee Pilot 1999-2000 and Airline/Corporate Pilot 2000-present day.

Sadly NR is right, below is a good analysis of the situation:
Is This 12% Yield Sustainable? - 12/07/2011

More s@@t to fall in August I suspect, just hope some of lands on the Board.:\

My apologies for my earlier optimistic postings re': recruitment as these are clearly wrong. The management team said this evening that there were fewer leavers than originally thought, the Voluntary Severance scheme would not be renewed this winter and there would be no new commands. The possibility for redundancy was alluded to but not spelt out. Mea Culpa!

Blame the "boss"
 

Sadly MYT was successfully turned around by a hard-headed specialist and his team a few years back. The merger with TCX led to the new expanded company being led by a colourful character who still "runs" the outfit through a cult of personality. He has failed, but during this time has awarded himself and his team mega-bonuses. The cynicism that abounds about M F-N is extreme within the organisation, including the pilot workforce. They understand fully that the company cannot be run like a family outfit, although it currently is, with jobs for the boys in the flight deck. Further details cannot be given, but the symptoms of a badly-run company are there for all to dig out, much like Murdoch's papers!

What are you talking about? Do you work for TCX? What 'jobs for the boys in the flight deck' are you alluding to? And quite frankly even if it was the case (which it isn't), what difference would it make to TC group performance / profitability / share price? :confused:

Further details cannot be given?? I'm sorry but it's all bones and no meat. Show your cards or back in your box. :=

Let's be clear: the City aren't interested in the slightest about who flies the aircraft, or whether there is indeed a "jobs for the boys" culture in the Flight Ops department.

Flight Ops in TCX is the people transport division of the holiday group.

The problem here is there aren't enough customers for holidays, or if there are they aren't paying enough. It's not, per se, an airline problem (who are only reactive to tour ops demands) unless the airline is told to downsize soon.

Putting an extra 100 kg of fuel on won't make a huge difference to the bottom line of TC group, so I would forget any thoughts on that line. The city do NOT understand a flight plan, I can promise you that.

The problem here is that TCG effectively told the City they were headed for Glasgow. Then a few weeks later, they announced all of a sudden that the day trip would end in Carlisle............

I agree Narrow Runway this is not down to the Airline, it is bad management and planning from our Tours Ops division. This leads to a very interesting question; so where does the Airline go from here?

I personally believe we are rapidly approaching some defining moments for Thomas Cook Airlines as it currently exists. An axe must fall somewhere over this latest development, and my view is that it should come from the top where we are clearly being steered in the wrong direction. If we look around us, our nearest competitors are managing a depressed state with far geater success...

Next month the company will be releasing some information about a project that has been going on, which, if the snippets from the hangar are to be believed are us exploiting our very cheap seat costs in the 'seat only' market. This would give Thomas Cook Airlines some freedom to run their own Airline whilst providing seats for Tour Ops. Given current developments this may be no bad idea as it shows some intitiative and the group trying something new, which is now desperately needed given current stratergies are failing.

Yesterday on the webchat R O stated the press release was not going to impact on the plans for the Airline (well not at the moment anyway). The question is, if we do not try something new, what can we do next. The Airline and most probably the whole group is now cut to the bone, so to claw back dignity and more importantly profits they now have to do something...

Post removed

gliding777,

That is a pointless post which as well as being totally irrelevant to the topic being discussed is very unfair to the individuals which you (all but) name.

Do you work for TCX, or do you just have a massive axe to grind?

ET,

No axe to grind, no I don't work for TCX, I was just adding some info that was alluded to by an earlier poster.

RoyHudd may be correct, but the implications made are, in my opinion, below the belt and unfounded.

I think this is getting way too personal on a public forum. There are several guys (and a girl, I think) who have relatives in the business. No big deal, there were some in the Airtours days too. It has nothing to do with the current situation just as it had nothing to do with AIH's problems.

Ok chaps, fair enough. I can see that my post could be interpreted as 'having a dig' - it really wasn't at all! - so I've removed it.

So this stratergy that's being announced in August, the suggestion being that seat only flights are going to pushed, means TCX will be a low cost carrier that also sells holidays, as opposed to a holiday operation that also sells seats. Reminds me a little of northern operation that has expanded very quickly and profitably over the last few years. Going head to head with Jet2 then.
Be interesting to see what does get announced.

In essence, yes, that is supposedly the case with our seat costs being amongst the cheapest out there. However, there has been aknowledgement that we are not successful now (a bit stupid to say really as we are still targeting 320 million profit..) because our margins are too tight. This is due to us selling really cheap package holidays and not enough differentiated, high end products that make the margins.

I'm sure everyone who works there will join me in collectively crossing everything we have that we will start to target high end, high margin products and ditch those vile 2350z ZTH's.

But isn't that what MYT were doing pre merger. 2 rotations, no deep nights, top of the OTP charts. There were still a fair smattering of tracksuit clad, hard drinking and swearing types in the check in queue, but thier crews seemed happy, not tired and the servicablity rates, we were lead to believe, were good.
It's going to be really unfair on the ex FLC FO's if redundancies occur and they are at the bottom of the seniority list though.

Worrying times for all concerned. Hope any pain is felt disproportionately in favour of any managemnt Tsars who haven't been worth thier bonuses to date.

The way the share price is today, we may be looking at more than lopping a few off the bottom of the seniority list!
These bloody pile it high sell it cheap merchants are the tourist industry equivalent of market hawkers, then when it all goes tits up, they will walk away with millions, just like the last bunch of shysters did at AIH and MYT.
Makes me sick!

screw fix, on the bonus side you need to go back to earlier this year when Manny explained away how the board were tweaking things in the directors favour. You and I have to take the rough with the smooth but it does not apply to the directors.

Indeed very worrying times. One wonders if the markets are starting to get jittery about potentially the group being unable to meet it's debt covenants.

recruitment is the last thing on their minds....

Macdo - you've changed your tune - less than a week ago you were telling people to form an orderly queue for the flight deck jobs that were going to appear in the new year.
It was pretty obvious from the fact that the fleet number was to be reduced that things weren't very rosy in the uk.... I wouldn't have posted this except I didn't particularly like your "I've been round the block a few times and therefore I know best" tone in a previous post. Somewhat condescending.

FLAPERON Shame you didn't read my post 17 up before putting up your sarcasm.
As regards experience, in 13 years of service the airline, in one guise or another, has recruited in 10 of those years. The numbers always vary and I include all the different variety of sponsored cadets that we have had. I might be wrong in this, but I believe we had another sponsorship scheme running this year. Therefore, I would say it was not unreasonable to suppose or hope, for a limited recruitment drive this Winter. That is the norm.
Now, due to the state of the Tour Operator (not the airline, which is one of the tightest run operations anywhere) we have a new reality and things will be clearer on 11th. August.

The post I made a couple up was more a reaction of anger to the appalling mismanagement that we employees have to suffer, while we effectively take a cut in pay these b'stards are making millions...... off I go again. There is still no indication of the need for any redundancies this Winter. Especially with 60+ pilots on detachment.

Just an observation of bonuses, which I agree is totally off thread now. I would have thought it 'normal' for the bonus to be that you kept your job if you did a good job and lost your job if you did a bad job.

Anyway the share price has gone up 1.25 today so TCX are in a better position this morning than last night so I guess all those executive types will give themselves a slap on the back. The only positive is that its forecast to rain on thier barbeques all weekend.

I hope next week brings better news and confidence.

Down again currently
 

70.1 pence

Down 1.6% as of 1600 local today.

The strategic review results are badly needed, in order to calm investor concerns.

No news is not good news in this scenario.

Just for the record this was the third profit warning......the directors are still get their bonuses...

Latest rumour to begin circulating is that we are now keeping 2 of the 3 x 330s that were to have gone, and will only say good bye to XA.

Plus ca change

Heard that TCX are likely to be slightly undercrewed this winter. Don't hold your breath but better info probable post 11th Aug.

'IF' a trickle of personnel go off to other Airlines, as is currently the case we will be under crewed. However, this will not require recruitment for that period. The issues will begin from next summer depending on the flavour of the announcement on 11th August. It is believed with the announcement fleets for 2012 and beyond with our new directive will be disclosed. Which ever way it goes expect some big movements!

For this winter we have:

2x A330's Hajj, 1 767 Hajj
20 A330 F/O's operating longhaul for TCX Scandi for 6 months
1 757 Las palmas based operating to Scandanavia
1 767 leased to Condor with flight deck for 18 months
1x 757 TBC Calgary based operating to Hawaii all winter

Any news from the announcement on 11th august?

Or has the announcement been delayed?

Cheers.

No news yet.

No news yet but some very significant developments. Share price remains very depressed which, is crazy for a company aiming for £320 million profit, but that's the city!! The CEO MFN has resigned as we clearly have the wrong strategy. The airline seems to be on track to meet it's targets.

It is believed the Airline will be given more freedom to seek other revenue streams to increase profitability throughout the year. This will likely create an amount of expansion especially when the new fleet arrives. However, due to commitments with tour ops this will take time to establish and due to the current economic climate it appears further contraction is likely in the uk for the next2 years. This in turn means the company will look to offload PIlots, but I understand they have identified a number of opportunities that will attract PIlots for a short term period.

Obviously things can and probably will change. But as things stand recruitment at TCX is very very unlikely this winter

Well, I shall eat humble pie tonight.
It seems that we are to lose around 250 of our colleagues in the shake up currently occurring at TCX.
72 pilots and 181 cabin crew to be in the consultation process.
As suspected, 3 x 330 to go 1 x 320.
76 on longterm lease to Condor and Scandi 330 not coming to us next summer.
The only consolation is that there are plenty of boys and girls already with offers to go to other airlines. I would hope that, at the final count, there will be no compulsory redundancies at all. I'm sure that is the aspiration that the management and the unions have.
So, no, in spite of my earlier good feelings for the futre, there really will be no recruitment at TC this winter. Sorry.
Good luck to all those effected.:ouch:

So, you really didn't have your finger (or any other part of your anatomy) on the pulse.

At least you have had taken the trouble to apologise and for that you are to be commended.