Rachel Reeves, chairwoman of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee of lawmakers, proceeded to tell Fankhauser that apologies would "ring a bit more true" if he was willing to pay back his 2017 cash bonus worth more than £500,000 ($629,174, 570,520 euros). The money could be "put to better purpose" such as redundancy payments or compensation for taxpayers, she added.
Fankhauser replied: "In my reflections I will take that back, chair, and I will consider what is right, but I'm not going to decide that today." Thomas Cook's demise sparked 22,000 job losses worldwide and triggered Britain's biggest peacetime repatriation, with the government paying to fly home 140,000 UK-based customers stranded abroad by the company's bankruptcy.
Reeves on Tuesday described former Thomas Cook chairman Frank Meysman "deluded" over the collapse. "You can point to as many successes as you like but you have brought down a 178-year business with huge repercussions for customers, staff and taxpayers. "You can point to the successes but I'll point to the failures and they hugely outweigh the successes you've spoken about. I think you're deluded Mr Meysman about the business you ran," she added.
Dozens of cabin crew and other staff attended parliament in uniform to hear the former bosses explain the company's failure. Britain's biggest union, Unite, meanwhile expressed "shock and anger" after the hearing revealed that the country's transport minister Grant Shapps barred directors of Thomas Cook from speaking to government ministers in the fortnight before its collapse. "While other governments throughout Europe were prepared to support parts of the Thomas Cook business and to seek to alleviate the damage faced by their tourism and transport industries, our government had installed barriers to prevent direct meetings," Oliver Richardson, Unite national officer for civil aviation, said in a statement.