Thomas Cook has seen a marked upturn in bookings for this summer in the last four weeks, according to a trading statement released ahead of today’s AGM.
The travel giant followed rival Tui Travel in giving an update on its performance saying the summer programme is now 54% sold.
The update said, taking capacity cuts into account, there was 5% less stock to sell for summer than at the same time last year, 17% less to sell for May and 10% less for June.
Average selling prices for summer are up 2%, due to a shift away from higher priced long-haul to lower priced, but higher margin medium haul.
Planned capacity cuts for summer stand at 3%, and cumulative bookings for the season are down 2%, showing bookings are running ahead of the reduction in capacity.
Cook said its independent business, which is not included in the figures, was trading ahead of last year with bookings up 90% at Hotels4U and 40% at Gold Medal/Net Flights.
Winter 2009/10 is 91% sold as the season draws to a close with the update saying business had “improved strongly” leaving cumulative bookings down 9% against an 8% cut in capacity. Average selling prices were up 6%.
Cook’s currency position for winter was 98% for the US dollar, 94% for the Euro and for fuel 99% hedged. For summer those figures were 92%, 90% and 88% respectively.
The statement said: “As the Winter 2009/10 season draws to a close, trading has continued to show steady progress and Summer 2010 bookings have continued to pick up across all major markets. The board remains confident that the group will perform in line with its expectations for the year.”