Updated with Air Malta, Chamber of Commerce statements at 5.21pm
A rescue flight will fly to Malta on Monday after British travel group Thomas Cook declared bankruptcy, stranding thousands of passengers abroad.
Some 500 people currently holidaying in Malta are affected, a spokesperson for the British High Commission said.
A spokeswoman for Malta International Airport said a Thomas Cook flight from Malta to London Gatwick had been cancelled but a rescue flight had already been scheduled for Monday.
Another flight has been arranged on Thursday by the Civil Aviation Authority in connection with the UK's Department of Transport.
Tony Zahra, president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, said that Thomas Cook accounted for some 50,000 tourists who came to Malta annually, or some 0.03 per cent of hotel stays.
He expressed concern for Maltese hoteliers who had rooms booked by the company and may have problems being paid for them.
Air Malta to operate special flights
Air Malta has stepped in to help Thomas Cook’s stranded passengers in various countries following the announcement that the British global travel group has ceased trading, cancelled all its flights and suspended its operations.
To minimise inconveniences to stranded passengers and assist the efforts being made by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, Air Malta has issued a rescue fare of €50 per sector available on its flights to/from Amsterdam, Brussels, Birmingham, London Heathrow, Gatwick and Southend, Berlin, Bristol, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, Paris Orly and Charles De Gaulle, Marseille, Lyon, Milan, Rome, Geneva, Zurich, and Vienna. This price excludes taxes and charges.
Tickets are offered on availability basis and are available only to Thomas Cook’s flight ticket holders or package holiday vouchers.
The airline is also exploring other initiatives to help affected passengers in this unfortunate circumstance.
Bookings can be made through Air Malta’s call centre on +356 21662211 from tomorrow 24th September till Tuesday 15th October with travel open until the end of October 2019.
What to do if you flew to Malta with Thomas Cook
UK authorities have started contingency flights to bring stranded passengers home.
"Everyone on a Thomas Cook holiday with a return flight to the UK within the two weeks will be brought home," the British High Commission in Malta said in a statement.
Flights will begin on Monday and passengers will not have to pay any money to be flown back to the UK. Before cutting your holiday short or heading to the airport, check thomascook.caa.co.uk for details about your rescue flight.
Some passengers may end up being flown to a different airport to the one they departed from. The UK government will organise coaches and taxis to get passengers to their original airport.
People on holiday as part of a Thomas Cook package will also not have to fork out for accommodation costs, as the UK government will be using an Air Travel Trust Fund to pay any extra costs.
The Ministry of Tourism said it is monitoring the situation and will act to ensure that Thomas Cook clients in Malta and Maltese hotels will be hit as little as possible.
The Malta Tourism Authority has offered its assistance to the British High Commission, which is coordinating the repatriation of the company's clients from Malta.
Meanwhile, the Malta Chamber’s Tourism Business Section called on the authorities to strengthen the insolvency fund.
"As the local economy still heavily depends on the tourism sector, the country cannot take such developments lightly. We need to ensure that risks to the sector are effectively mitigated" the Chamber said.
The Business Section also noted that the vast majority of holidaymakers’ arrangements were covered through different types of financial protection: the majority were flight packages covered by ATOL, the UK's version of an Insolvency Fund.
"It is in times like these, that the Chamber cannot but stress the importance of having a functioning Insolvency Fund that caters for similar situations happening in Malta. The Malta Chamber has expressed itself on the matter, and continues to underline the importance of strengthening such a structure to safeguard the rights of travellers,” it concluded.
Are you affected by the Thomas Cook closure? Share your story by emailing mynews@timesofmalta com.
Massive repatriation effort
The company's collapse has triggered the UK's biggest repatriation since World War II to bring back tens of thousands of stranded passengers.
The British government said all people currently abroad with Thomas Cook who are booked to return to the UK over the next two weeks will be flown home as close as possible to their booked return date.
Details of each flight will be posted on a special website, thomascook.caa.co.uk, as soon as they are available.
Customers are being advised not to cut short their holiday or go to the airport without checking the website for information about their return journey.
The UK CAA is also contacting hotels accommodating Thomas Cook customers, who have booked as part of a package, to tell them that the cost of their accommodation will also be covered by the UK government, through the Air Travel Trust Fund/ATOL cover.
The 178-year-old operator, which had struggled against fierce online competition for some time and which had blamed Brexit uncertainty for a recent drop in bookings, had been desperately seeking £200 million (€227 million) from private investors to avert collapse.
The news leaves a reported 600,000 tourists stranded worldwide, including around 150,000 holidaymakers seeking help from the British government to return home.
In a statement published in the early hours of the morning, Thomas Cook said that "despite considerable efforts" it was unable to reach an agreement between the company's stakeholders and proposed new money providers.
"The company's board has therefore concluded that it had no choice but to take steps to enter into compulsory liquidation with immediate effect," the statement added.
The UK government said it had hired planes to fly home British tourists, in an operation starting immediately.
"Following the collapse of Thomas Cook and the cancellation of all its flights, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced that the government and UK Civil Aviation Authority has hired dozens of charter planes to fly customers home free of charge," a statement said, describing it as the largest repatriation in peacetime history.
Both a tour operator and an airline, the travel giant's key destinations were in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, including Malta but it also offered holidays in Asia, North Africa and the Caribbean.,
Thomas Cook chief executive Peter Fankhauser called it a "deeply sad day", with thousands of jobs lost.
"It is a matter of profound regret to me and the rest of the board that we were not successful," he said.
"This marks a deeply sad day for the company which pioneered package holidays and made travel possible for millions of people around the world," he added in the group's statement.
22,000 jobs
The firm's creditors held a marathon meeting on Sunday to try and work out a deal, followed by a meeting of the board of directors.
Reports said a collapse of the group would mean the repatriation of 600,000 tourists, including around 150,000 seeking government help returning to the UK.
Two years ago, the collapse of Monarch Airlines prompted the British government to take emergency action to return 110,000 stranded passengers, costing taxpayers some £60 million on hiring planes.
As well as the grounding of its planes, Thomas Cook has been forced to shut travel agencies, leaving the group's 22,000 global employees - 9,000 of whom are in Britain - out of a job.
Condor to keep flying
Condor, the German airline subsidiary of British travel giant Thomas Cook, said Monday it would continue flying even after its parent company declared bankruptcy.
Underlining that it had been "profitable for many years," the airline added that "to prevent liquidity bottlenecks at Condor, it has applied for a state-guaranteed bridging loan" which is being examined in Berlin.
"We're continuing to concentrate on what we do best: flying our guests safely and punctually to their holidays," said managing director Ralf Teckentrup.