Thomas cook - Repatriations... Can the planes...

[cjt110]

.... be commandeered? By the government, or CAA?

The fleet of aircraft are all over the world and likely to fly back empty.

My husband is into planes and nerdy about this kind iof stuff and doesn't know the answer. But has just sent me an article that shows a Mayalsian Airlines A380 which has been flown into Majorca to assist

I assumed they just muck in.
It's a fairly rare event.

Nope. They don't belong to Thomas Cook. The CAA have secured 51 planes to fly today which is almost the size of the Thomas cook fleet. The operation is likely to cost about £100M based on the Monarch operation two years ago.

@Blankiefan Thanks for that. Yes, husband was saying about the planes being leased not owned.

And who pays for the £100M repatriations? The CAA?

Usually the planes from the airline in question are impounded at the airport they are at, which the airport won't then release until they are paid any money owed. A lot of the aircraft are on lease and are not owned by the airline anyway, despite being painted in their livery. The companies that actually own them will eventually get them back.

When Monarch went under, their aircraft at Manchester had either snow ploughs or tractors parked behind them so they couldn't be moved.

The planes being used for repatriation will be completely different planes to the ones that would have made the original flights. They will have been specifically brought in and paid for separately.

Every time you buy an ATOL protected holiday, you pay a £2.50 levy. This goes into a trust fund and will be used to cover all ATOL protected travellers. Given the scale of the issue, the government have asked the CAA to also repatriate non-ATOL passengers too so the govt will pay for those people.

Interesting. Thanks all.

We were at manchester on Friday and saw 5 of the grounded Max Boeing planes. Looked strange to see their engines covered over.