MyTravel and Thomas Cook announce merger plans in UK

Rivals MyTravel and Thomas Cook today announced plans to bring together the two firms, creating a tour operator with nearly 33,000 staff.

Here are some of the details behind the £2.8bn (€4.2bn) merger.

Thomas Cook was set up in 1841 by its Derbyshire-born founder of the same name and ran its first organised tour – an 11-mile train journey for 500 passengers – from Leicester to Loughborough that year.

:: It is Europe’s second largest tour operator, with 2,400 branches across Europe and 574 in the UK. The company has nearly 20,000 staff and 66 aircraft. It carries 13.6 million passengers in total and 3.1 million in the UK.

:: Club 18-30 is the best known of Thomas Cook’s 33 European brands, flying party-lovers to 11 destinations in the Mediterranean. The company also owns budget package operator Sunset, while Thomas Cook Signature caters for higher-budget holidaymakers. Neilson runs adventure holidays such as skiing and snowboarding breaks.

:: The business was jointly owned by airline Lufthansa and retailer KarstadtQuelle after the German giants bought the firm in December 2000, but KarstadtQuelle bought Lufthansa’s stake in an 800 million euro (£532m/€800m ) deal completed last Friday.

:: MyTravel was founded in 1972 when David Crossland bought Pendle Travel Services, which had two branches in Lancashire. A year later the Airtours name was born after Mr Crossland bought a second agency from Albert and Ivy Roberts, who had registered the business under their initials – AIR Tours.

:: The company changed its name to MyTravel in 2002, but the business nearly went bust in 2004 under the weight of its debts. It was rescued by American turnaround specialist Peter McHugh, who pushed through an £800m (€1.2bn) restructuring of the debt, axed 2,000 jobs and pulled the firm back into the black. It now carries 5.5 million passengers a year, 3.1 million from the UK.

:: MyTravel played a leading role in the development of package holidays. Holidays are sold through more than 500 of the company’s own stores worldwide, through travel agents, over the phone, and increasingly online.

:: Airtours, which flies families, couples and groups to 52 summer and winter holiday destinations, is the most prominent of MyTravel’s 17 UK and Ireland brands. Its main travel agency, Going Places, employs 4,000 people in more than 600 shops in the UK. MyTravel also counts budget operator Aspro among its operations as well as short-break specialist Cresta and Escapades – MyTravel’s answer to Club 18-30, flying to the Mediterranean and Mexico.