What Happens Now to Thomas Cook's Planes?

Last week, after nearly 200 years of ferrying countless numbers of passengers across the globe, travel giant Thomas Group folded. The collapse poses an interesting question: what happens now to their planes? Due to how the company conducted their business, the answer may not be as straightforward as you might think. Let me explain...

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Also big thanks to Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut for providing the soundtrack and for inspiring me to continue honing my craft.

P.S. - Hope you guys enjoy the new camera as much as I do ;) Let me know if you can tell the difference!

[cobyexplanes]

Edit: I've been called out because one of the third party airlines is named smartlynx, not skylynx. My bad!

[wazzaseq]

I was surprised to learn Thomas Cook had any planes at all — I always thought they were strictly a travel agent, at least in Australia.

[adivkoenraad]

3:42 "considering the pilot shortage that is going on" its 2020 yeah pilot shortage isn't a thing any more

[marc]

Thomas Cook employed the flight crews they weren’t 3rd party. It also had a huge maintenance department and hanger at Manchester Airport servicing their own and other airlines aircraft. Only a small percentage were on a wet lease and then it was tcx cabin crew operating on the ac. Very few airlines buy ac, most are dry leased from leasing companies.

[davidclaro]

I didn’t know about wet lease and dry lease. I learn something new everyday.

[BlueCrewGaming]

As a Aviation nerd and a Huge fan of Ving, I can say that all of Thomas cook’s planes went to Ving/ Ving’s new airline Sunclass Airlines! By the way I am not saying that Ving owns Sunclass, but back to the point. Sunclass had all Thomas Cook’s planes. And since Thomas Cook went bankrupt Right before the Pandemic when the pandemic started and Ving had a new owner (Petter Stordal) Sunclass had to start selling Aircrafts. Selling almost ALL of the A330’s leaving one A330 left. As of now Sunclass has a Fleet of 1 A330 9 A321’s and are looking towards expanding their fleet as soon as possible to start The new Thomas cook! (Note I know I missed one airline in the Sunclass airlines fleet but I forgot what model it is.)

[cobywayne]

Diggin the new camera, I can definitely tell the difference. Welcome to the big leagues :)

[zuuzibornride]

Great video, I’ve just spotted one small mistake - I’ve used to work for Thomas Cook and the other company is called SmartLynx (not Skylynx :)). There was another one we used called Air Tanker. Also, we only really had A321 & A330 left (Boeings 757-300 left the fleet in January last year), and Boeings 767 were only used by Condor. Greetings from England :)

[adamstevens]

not all the planes were wet leased, only a few of them were wet leased and the rest was leased, all on tcx contracts, keep up the good work tho

[billeriksson]

"Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia is a charter airline, which was signed on October 30, 2019 and replaced by Sunclass Airliness. Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia flew until October 30 for travel agents Ving and Globetrotter in Sweden [2]. In Norway Ving.no, and in Denmark for Gulliver's Travels and Spies, in Finland they flew for Tjäreborg.


Former principal owner Thomas Cook Group was filed for bankruptcy on September 23, 2019. Thomas Cook Scandinavia and Ving are both legally independent companies to the parent company and this means that the company continued its business despite the bankruptcy.


The company originated in Danish Conair, which was merged with SAS's charter airline Scanair and together formed Premiair. In connection with Airtour's change of name to MyTravel Group, Premiair changed its name to MyTravel Airways. On May 9, 2008, MyTravel Airways changed its name to Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia. In 2019, the company changes its name to Sunclass Airlines.


The airline has its main base at Copenhagen Airport."
Fleet:
Airbus A321-211 8 212
Airbus A330-200 2 322
Airbus A330-300 3 388/396
Total 13

[pilotpeter]

Sad they ceased operations but glad they gorgeous jets will find new homes!

[GavinByrneLand]

I love this channel, keep up the good work.

[MegaJimbob]

Looking forward to hearing about the pilot shortage in another video sometime. I always thought many trained to be a pilot but only a select few made it. Excellent video as always. 👍

[keiralouisebowtell]

Miss travelling with Thomas cook🥺 travelled on the Boeing 7-5-7, Boeing 7-6-7 and the A320 airbus multiple times every year from 2007-2019.

[HowItHappened]

Nice video, interesting to hear about the planes

[jontunstall]

They only had approx 7 aircraft that were wet leased - they only supplied flight deck, cabin crew were TC staff please get your facts right. They had thousands of cabin crew and their own maintenance facility and carried out work for third party operators too!

[polduseri]

Planes are not the top cherry on the cake but the licenses and rights. Also, I read that most of their planes are not wet leases and if that’s the concern then they can sale with easy all but the A330s (can be scrap or donated to museums)

[shakiMiki]

Interesting & informative. Wet lease sounded like perfect model, surprising it didn't work out. from April 2020, the prognosis looks very different.

[realcanadianrailfan]

The fact of the crews depends on if the airlines that lease the planes already have that type in their fleet. If not, then they will need trained and certified crews on that type. Not every airline is Southwest or Ryanair who operate one airplane type.

[tanguyadriaenssen]

Funny to watch this 9 months later when all planes are sitting on the ground...