At about 2.00 AM Monday morning, the UK Civil Aviation Authority announced that Thomas Cook Group has ceased trading with immediate effect. All flights and holiday tours were cancelled.
Thomas Cook is the world's oldest travel group, entered Compulsory Liquidation and are now under the control of the Official Receiver. The collapse leaves more than half a million holiday makers stranded around the globe. This is by far the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history.
Peter Fankhauser, the chief executive of Thomas Cook, said the tour operator's collapse was a "matter of profound regret" as he apologized to the company's "millions of customers, and thousands of employees".
Here's an update from Bloomberg:
