15 Years On: MyTravel Group Merges into Thomas Cook

LONDON – Exactly 15 years ago today, the MyTravel Group went defunct and merged into the Thomas Cook brand to form Thomas Cook Group Plc.

MyTravel in particular, had a significant presence in the United Kingdom, with Manchester being well known for its operations out of the airport as the Headquarters.

Let’s take a brief history lesson at MyTravel:

Brief History…

The MyTravel Group started out originally as the Airtours Group back in 1972, which is 50 years this year.

David Crossland was the person responsible for the founding of Airtoues after purchasing several travel agencies in Lancashire and then operating its own package holidays.

By the early 1980s, Airtours was operating its own charter carrier and offered its first flights to the likes of the Caribbean by 1987.

By 1994, the airline purchased Scandinavian Leisure Group, and around eight years later, this is where the MyTravel name came about.

In terms of the Group fleet across its different subsidiaries being MyTravel Airways Scandinavia & UK, as well as MyTravelLite, the airline operated around 72 aircraft in total across its lifespan, being:

37 Airbus A320s
12 Airbus A321s
8 Airbus A330s
1 Boeing 737
7 Boeing 757s
3 Boeing 767s
4 McDonnell Douglas DC-10s

As well as Manchester, the UK subsidiary operated out of the following airports:

Belfast-International
Birmingham
Bristol
Cardiff
East Midlands
Glasgow
London Gatwick
Newcastle

So it remains clear the level of prevalence the group had, particularly in the United Kingdom.

When it came to merger time, the group ceased operations on this day, but MyTravel Airways in the UK ceased operations on March 30, 2008, to Thomas Cook UK, with its Scandinavian subsidiary ceasing in the same year under the Thomas Cook Scandinavia branch.

However, in 2019, following the demise of a lot of the Thomas Cook brand, the airline was then renamed again to Sunclass Airlines.

The MyTravel Group had plenty of subsidiaries to acquire revenue sources, and in 2006, had around 13,000 employees and was recording revenues of £2.79bn per year on average.

Now, of course, the legacy of MyTravel did falter further following the liquidation of Thomas Cook in 2019, but with Thomas Cook on the rise once again, it means the legacy can continue with reason.

Overall…

It remains clear that the MyTravel Group was a huge part of the UK’s success story in the airline industry, especially on chartered holidays overseas.

With the vast range of aircraft that were offered in the fleet, the destination usage was a well-covered network, which enabled Thomas Cook to benefit well until liquidation.

Such spaces are nowadays occupied by the likes of TUI, Jet2, and others, who effectively do the job that MyTravel had done for over 40 years of operations.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how Thomas Cook will do on its rebuild and revamp, and whether indeed they can continue the legacy that MyTravel set that brand up for.