, Columnist
Airlines Will Face a Reckoning Like the Banks Did
When the pandemic is over, travel groups should be forced to rethink their dependence on customer prepayments.
What happens when it all goes wrong?
Photographer: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFPThis article is for subscribers only.
When U.K. travel brand Thomas Cook relaunched as an online travel agent last month, it needed a way to convince customers that it’s become a more reliable custodian of their money since its 2019 bankruptcy and that they’ve nothing to fear from booking a holiday during a pandemic.
Its solution was to promise that most of the cash customers hand over long before they go on holiday will now be held in a ring-fenced trust account until they return.1