Thomas Cook reports robust summer sales

www.thomascook.com

Thomas Cook is reporting “robust” summer sales despite later bookings and holidays that have been cancelled due to the swine flu outbreak.

For the six month winter season, through the end of March, the travel company reported a 20 per cent increase in losses, bringing the pre-tax loss total for the period to £280 million. Summer sales in the UK have been described as strong, however.

“Summer trading in the UK has been robust with average selling prices up nine per cent,” the company said, adding: “Cumulative bookings are down 12% and trending towards our planned capacity reductions of 10%.

The company’s statement went on to say: “Our concentration on selling capacity in the shoulder months early (May/June and September/October) has left us in a strong position in the later market with 64% of capacity sold and seven per cent less left to sell.”

Thomas Cook added in its interim results statement that its underlying performance has been strong, with the exception of Mexico. It noted that bookings during the past three weeks were down by 10 per cent, as compared with the same period last year, but that average programme prices are up over last year by 15 per cent.

The statement continued: “Cancellations, excluding Mexico, are in line with prior year levels. While our exposure to Mexico in the UK is less than two per cent of capacity for the full season, bookings in the last three weeks have been heavily distorted by the immediate impact of cancellations resulting from the swine flu incident.”

Thanks to www.travelmole.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

www.thomascook.com