Thomas Cook bankrupcy?

I think the more accurate phrase would be that Thomas Cook is on the brink of ceasing operations. Bankruptcy doesn’t exist in the UK, and the UK government has shown little desire to rescue struggling transportation/holiday companies in the past.

Quite right Dave, this government is ideologically opposed to bailing out business. For the main part though - the irony of the situation is that the demand for Thomas Cook to secure additional funding is from a state owned bank previously bailed out by government.

I’m afraid things look bleak for Thomas Cook at the moment unless they can secure a miracle over the remaining part of this weekend.

I stand corrected on bankruptcy... I was under the impression it was a US thing. It looks like it pertains to individuals, not corporations, in the UK, but there are other actions that can be taken for corporations. After Monarch Airlines went belly up, I just assumed there wasn't a mechanism in place for businesses to do the US thing and "re-organize" under bankruptcy.

I was under the impression it was a US thing

Bankruptcy exists AFAIK in all countries, both for individuals and companies. How it is handled varies.
The only exception is command economies where there are no separate companies, they are just departments of government (even rabidly capitalist countries have a few of these entities, for example the post office)
What can't go bankrupt is countries and local government, they just go into "default" and stop paying their debts, and there is nothing those owed money can do.

Yes in the UK, the term bankruptcy is only applicable to individuals, including sole traders and members of partnerships. Companies go into liquidation.

The liquidation practitioner will usually try to keep the company running attempting a sale as a going concern or restructuring in order to best pay off the creditors. This is Administration and is kind of analogous to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the USA except it tends to be for a fairly short period and the original business owners don't have any real say in decision making by then. Not clear in this case whether this stage will be possible. It lost £1.5bn in its first half year of trading.

Thomas Cook filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the USA: https://simpleflying.com/thomas-cook-bankruptcy-protection/

The company has ceased operations.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/22/business/thomas-cook-collapse/index.html

Any info on how (if?) this affects Condor Airlines?

The Condor website is running a new banner that says they are still flying. https://www.condor.com/us

This little article just posted says Condor just applied for a bridge loan of some sort: https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2019-09-23---tourism--after-cook-bankruptcy--condor-applies-for-credit-to-federal-government-.BylhGYsSvr.html

The company has been bleeding money for years. The first 6 months of this fiscal year (which ended 31 March) saw them post a 1.46 BILLION Pounds loss. The problem is they've been living on borrowed money (much of it from China) and that's drying up worldwide. There are a lot of these "zombie" companies out there, deep in debt, with no possible way of meeting their financial targets, and they're gonna fall like dominoes.

Anybody who bought anything from this company in the last 6 months was taking chances, and now the gov't (read taxpayers) are going to have to bail them out.

Condor applied for a bridging credit at German government. This is checked currently because a lot of passengers are German. From what I read last LH may be interested in the connections and landing rights - but I do not know their current status of interest.

As mentioned Condor is not an airline, it is air charter. This means a different legal situation than line business.

Dang, I was going to investigate Condor Business Class from Las Vegas >Frankfurt next year, instead of my normal SFO route via UAL.

Here's a nice article from Bloomberg on the Condor situation (and the German air market):
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-23/germany-mulls-emergency-loan-for-condor-as-lufthansa-looks-on

Condor is not allowing Thomas Cook passengers to board today or tomorrow (Monday/Tuesday)... it doesn't seem like that would help with their petition for a bridge loan.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thomas-cook-grp-investment-condor-cus/thomas-cooks-condor-says-it-has-240000-customers-currently-abroad-idUSKBN1W80V1

For those thinking of requesting a refund, my credit card company (Chase) provides an immediate temporary credit once I disputed my charges with Thomas Cook. Chase at least was aware of the liquidation.

Just passed a Thomas Cook plane at JFK. It was parked away from the terminal.

The first 6 months of this fiscal year (which ended 31 March) saw them post a 1.46 BILLION Pounds loss.

Although the company was hardly in a good state, this large loss was not just from trading deterioration but mainly from finally taking a large impairment to goodwill dating right back to the acquisition of MyTravel. Indeed the company had a very odd bottom line over the last 10 years as it would show a profit one year and a very similar loss the next. The debt carried and service cost was there throughout though.

Info: German government decided to support Condor with a bridging debt.
(Source in German)

German saying: "Spare in der Zeit, dann hast Du in der Not." (If you saved [money] at right time you will have it in case of emergency.)

So, no more bad comments about Germany's finance strategy not to invest more money than available.

I was surprised that so many hotel providers still trusted in Thomas Cook after that long time (more than a year) of bad news and announcements. It became absolutely clear since spring that there will be no buyer (or better that they all wait for the case happened) but still the hard pressure from UK residents who avoid traveling especially to EU destinations. No fun for anybody but really no surprise.

friends have just got caught up in this.
Myself and a friend from Edinburgh were meeting up with other friends from Glasgow in Tenerife in November for a week ,my Edinburgh friend and I booked the trip through Jet2 holidays and have no problems, the Glasgow contingent (4) have booked the flights through Thomas Cook and accommodation separately .They are now looking to get their money back for the flights through their credit card company and are trying to book other flights, hopefully they will be able to do so.

Hello,

Anything new on the Condor airlines?
Is it Ok to travel with Condor next year since there is bridge financing in place?
I would be grateful for any news you might know.
Thank you

The latest news:

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/thomas-cook-group/condor/condor-increases-profit-passenger-numbers-and-load-factor/