Thomas Cook ex-boss defends £500,000 bonus payment

Thomas Cook’s former boss has defended a bonus payment of £500,000 and said he was not the only one to blame for the collapse of the holiday operator.

Peter Fankhauser told a cross-party committee of MPs that he worked “tirelessly” for Thomas Cook.

While he was sorry for the collapse, he said the reasons were “not one-sided”.

Committee chair Rachel Reeves, who asked Mr Fankhauser if he would give the bonus back, told Mr Fankhauser his apologies rang “rather hollow”.

Mr Fankhauser and other members of Thomas Cook’s former management were being grilled by MPs over what led to the liquidation of the business which cost thousands of jobs and left many holidaymakers stranded overseas.

The former chief executive said that he did not receive a bonus in 2018 but had received a £750,000 bonus in 2017 – two-thirds of which was in cash, the rest was in shares.

‘Deeply sorry’

Ms Reeves asked Mr Fankhauser if he would return money to repay taxpayers for the massive repatriation programme to bring 150,000 holidaymakers back to the UK and help fund redundancy payments to staff.

He said: “I fully understand the sentiment in the public and I understand the sentiment of some of our colleagues.

“However, what I can say to that is that I worked tirelessly for the success of the company and I am deeply sorry that I was not able to secure the deal.

“But it was not one-sided that I failed. There was multiple parties who had to contribute to the deal which finally then did not succeed.”

Mr Fankhauser said, on reflection, he will “consider what is right but I’m not going to decide that today”.