Thomas Cook chief executive Harriet Green has backed calls for a shake-up in what she describes as the “antiquated” school holiday system.
Green was given a role on prime minister David Cameron’s business advisory council and has raised the issue with him after he recently criticised travel companies for charging families more during school holidays.
She believes that the education system is to blame.
“The school year is very antiquated and based on outdated ideas that the children need to help to bring in the harvest,” Green said.
“I would change the construct of the school year and have three equal holidays. It would be in everyone’s interests – not least working families like my own – that we had staggered times and different slots for families to go away.
“It does not work in offices either if everyone is scrabbling for exactly the same time. At the moment everyone pushes for August. I have shared my views [with David Cameron] on this,” she told the Times on Saturday.
Fining families who take their children out of school during term-time is “slightly judicious administration, personally it doesn’t feel right to me”.
In a wide-ranging interview, Green is quoted as describing herself as “a landa” – a cross between a lion and a panda.
“Sometimes I am a real lion, I can roar, make things happen, I can change the course through will, energy and just being incredibly aggressive and assertive. But I can also be a big panda. If a company is sick, you have to be gentler – big eyes, big hugs.”
Discussing the financial turnaround of the ailing business she took on, Green said: “Thomas Cook needed to appeal to a new generation, it was ageing with its customers”.
The day on which she was appointed the share price dropped to 14p. “It was pretty ignominious. I wasn’t from travel, but in fact it helped that I came from the outside.”
Green also alluded to a future for travel agents despite Cook’s well-documented e-commerce drive.
A survey of customers found that although 93% used the internet to research a holiday, 66% wanted to talk to someone first.
“We modernised the web but we also saw that we needed to retain the one-on-one aspect with trust, assurance and personal knowledge,” Green added.