The 178-year-old British tour operator Thomas Cook collapsed Sunday night and immediately entered liquidation.
The company had been under bankruptcy protection for a number of months.
Early Monday morning travel bookings for its more than 600,000 global vacationers were cancelled.
Hundreds of thousands of travelers have been left stranded around the world but CAA Atlantic vice-president of communications Gary Howard says Thomas Cooke has not operated in Canada for a number of years.
He says it would be very unlikely any Canadians would have booked with the company directly or any retail operations in the UK.
“So, that’s not really an issue, however, Condor Airlines is a subsidiary of Thomas Cooke and is operating out of Canada to Europe but at this point they’re advising people that it’s business as usual and for the time being they’ll be operating.”
Howard says Thomas Cooke is primarily a tour operator and so negotiates sales with hotels and cruises and so on but is also a large retailer.
“That’s not very common. Usually a company is doing one or the other. This is when you need advice from a counselor or travel agent. Someone who has a good vibe on what’s happening in the travel industry.”
The UK government will not bail out Thomas Cooke and is launching its largest ever peacetime repatriation to bring approximately 150,000 passengers home.
In a news release issued Friday the company said it was seeking £200 million ($331 million Cdn) in emergency funds to avoid going bust, and was in weekend talks with shareholders and creditors.
Those talks failed.
The company employs 21,000 people.
