Looks like Thomas Cook has been getting conflicting advice from its bankers and investment managers. Why sell its airline, when its main competitors - Tui, Jet2 and EasyJet are all vertically integrated and the number of package holidays they sell to customers across Europe relates to the number of aircraft seats. TC without its airline would be a sandwich with no filling! The sale of the TC airline is purely a fire sale of the family silver.

Agreed, the only solution to give it any credibility, cash and save its flying programme is a sale and lease back. The only drawback is in obtaining the same rotation price with a 100% guarantee the fuel is totally hedged.