The collapse of Thomas Cook was “a walk in the park” compared to dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the B2B tour operating boss of dnata Travel Europe.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast, managing director Lisa McAuley said the failure of the travel giant in September 2019 was not as bad for dnata as some suggested.
“Thomas Cook’s collapse was an impact for us because they were a partner and in the fact that they sold our holidays, more so Gold Medal but also Cruise Plus,” she said.
“But actually, they were a competitor to us; they were a classic ‘frienemy’, if you like. Friend one day; enemy the next, and what they had done is they’d driven the market quite low on everything that was traveling west to North America in an attempt to put bums on seats.”
She added: “Their selling prices were really, really low and, as a competitor, we were having to go in and match those prices. We had proactively started to dial down our distribution with them anyway, and some of that was borne out of their strategy because they wanted to bring more in-house and some of it was the reality that there were concerns of over how Thomas Cook would play out.”
McAuley said: “Yes, we took a hit, like many others in the industry. Post-collapse, operationally it was such a challenge, but actually, I look back now and think, really, that was a walk in the park compared to where we are now.
“Actually, what it [the collapse] enabled us to do was bring a little bit more discipline in the market from a price point perspective. So actually, your margins were better.
“It sounds awful, saying that you benefit out of somebody else’s collapse, but that’s just the brutal reality of the commercial world. Failure can be someone else’s opportunity.”
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