New Airline ready to take off from Newcastle Airport

Passengers travelling on Thomas Cook flights from 30th March 2008, will be taking to the skies with the all-new Thomas Cook Airlines, which is launching with its first flight on Sunday heading to Faro.  The airline operates two aircraft from Newcastle Airport to 31 destinations.

Customers will now enjoy a greater selection of movies on long haul flights.  On shorter trips, cabin crew will have two films to choose from, enabling them to tailor the film option to the customers travelling.  For those who fancy some in-flight retail therapy, shoppers will be able to pick from delights such as Lola Rose jewellery, Billy Bag products and Tom Ford fragrances for men.  Those travelling in premium cabins will enjoy duvet quilts instead of blankets and u-shaped pillows for extra comfort.

In total, 18,000 crew training days have been undertaken, more than17,000 litres of paint have been used to re-brand aircraft and amendments have been made to over five million pages of flight manuals.

Frank Pullman, managing director of Thomas Cook Airlines said: “We’re very pleased to have our new airline ready for take-off from Newcastle Airport, enabling us to serve the people of the North East even more effectively during the all-important summer season this year.”

The new airline has been formed following Thomas Cook’s merger with MyTravel and the planes have been prepared so that this summer, the leading tour operator can cater for its 2.9 million passengers who will be flown 50 million miles by more than 600 pilots to 78 destinations.  They will be served by nearly 2,000 cabin crew over 125,000 flying hours.
 
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• About Thomas Cook UK & Ireland:

Thomas Cook UK & Ireland is the second largest leisure travel group in the UK with around 19,000 employees.  The company operates a fleet of 42 aircraft, has a network of more than 800 high street stores (Thomas Cook and Going Places), leading websites (www.thomascook.com and www.airtours.co.uk), its own television channel Thomas Cook TV (Sky channel 645) and some of the world's favourite travel brands.

These brands include Airtours, Club 18-30, Bridge, Cresta, CruiseThomasCook, Direct Holidays, Flexibletrips, flythomascook.com, Latitude, Manos, Neilson, Panorama, Style Holidays, Sunset, Sunworld Holidays, Thomas Cook, Thomas Cook Signature, Thomas Cook Sport and Tradewinds.

The company’s airline, Thomas Cook Airlines flies from various regional airports to destinations worldwide. 

Thomas Cook offers a range of financial services, including foreign exchange at competitive rates, the Thomas Cook Credit Card in conjunction with Barclays Bank, the cash passport and a wide range of travel insurance policies.  It is the only major travel company to be FSA regulated for its travel insurance, which is underwritten by AXA.  The company also owns White Horse Insurance Ireland Ltd.

Thomas Cook also has a leading publishing division, and currently has more than 150 guidebooks and publications on offer.

Thomas Cook UK & Ireland is part of Thomas Cook Group plc (www.thomascookgroup.com).