F-16 canopy after a bird strike

Mercedes-Benz 300SL sports car following the impact of a vulture to the windscreen at the 1952 Carrera Panamericana

A bird strike—sometimes called birdstrike, avian ingestion (only if in an engine), bird hit, or BASH (for Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard)—is a collision between an airborne animal (usually a bird or bat^[1]) and a man-made vehicle, especially aircraft. The term is also used for bird deaths resulting from collisions with man made structures such as power lines, towers and wind turbines.^[2] A bug strike is an impairment of an aircraft or aviator by an airborne insect.

Bird strikes are a significant threat to flight safety, and have caused a number of accidents with human casualties.^[3] The number of major accidents involving civil aircraft is quite low and it has been estimated that there is only about 1 accident resulting in human death in one billion (10⁹) flying hours.^[4] The majority of bird strikes (65%) cause little damage to the aircraft;^[5] however, the collision is usually fatal to the bird.

Most accidents occur when the bird hits the windscreen or flies into the engines. These cause annual damages that have been estimated at $400 million^[3] within the United States of America alone and up to $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft worldwide.^[6]

Event description[link]

View of fan blades of Pratt & Whitney JT8D jet engine after a bird strike

A hawk stuck in the nosecone of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules

Inside of a jet engine after a bird strike

Deer entangled in a landing gear

An ICE 3 high speed train after hitting a bird

A bird control vehicle belonging to Copenhagen Airport Kastrup, equipped with various tools

Bird strikes happen most often during takeoff or landing, or during low altitude flight.^[7] However, bird strikes have also been reported at high altitudes, some as high as 6,000 m (20,000 ft) to 9,000 m (30,000 ft) above the ground. Bar-headed geese have been seen flying as high as 10,175 m (33,383 ft) above sea level. An aircraft over the Côte d'Ivoire collided with a Rüppell's Vulture at the astonishing altitude of 11,300 m (37,100 ft), the current record avian height.^[8] The majority of bird collisions occur near or on airports (90%, according to the ICAO) during takeoff, landing and associated phases. According to the FAA wildlife hazard management manual for 2005, less than 8% of strikes occur above 900 m (3,000 ft) and 61% occur at less than 30 m (100 ft).^{[citation needed]}

The point of impact is usually any forward-facing edge of the vehicle such as a wing leading edge, nose cone, jet engine cowling or engine inlet.^{[citation needed]}

Jet engine ingestion is extremely serious due to the rotation speed of the engine fan and engine design. As the bird strikes a fan blade, that blade can be displaced into another blade and so forth, causing a cascading failure. Jet engines are particularly vulnerable during the takeoff phase when the engine is turning at a very high speed and the plane is at a low altitude where birds are more commonly found.^{[citation needed]}

The force of the impact on an aircraft depends on the weight of the animal and the speed difference and direction at the impact. The energy of the impact increases with the square of the speed difference. Hence a low-speed impact of a small bird on a car windshield causes relatively little damage. High speed impacts, as with jet aircraft, can cause considerable damage and even catastrophic failure to the vehicle. The energy of a 5 kg (11 lb) bird moving at a relative velocity of 275 km/h (171 mph) approximately equals the energy of a 100 kg (220 lb) weight dropped from a height of 15 metres (49 ft).^[9] However, according to the FAA only 15% of strikes (ICAO 11%) actually result in damage to the aircraft.^{[citation needed]}

Bird strikes can damage vehicle components, or injure passengers. Flocks of birds are especially dangerous, and can lead to multiple strikes, and damage. Depending on the damage, aircraft at low altitudes or during take off and landing often cannot recover in time, and thus crash, as in the case of US Airways Flight 1549.

Remains of the bird, termed snarge,^[10] are sent to identification centers where forensic techniques may be used to identify the species involved. These samples need to be taken carefully by trained personnel to ensure proper analysis^[11] and reduce the risks of zoonoses.^[12]

The Israeli Air Force has a larger than usual birdstrike risk as Israel is on a major spring and autumn long-distance bird migration route.^{[citation needed]}

Sacramento International Airport has had more bird strikes (1,300 collisions between birds and jets between 1990 and 2007, causing an estimated $1.6 million in damage) than any other California airport. Sacramento International Airport has the most bird strikes of any airport in the west and sixth among airports in the US, according to the FAA, as it is located along the Pacific Flyway, a major bird migration path.^[13][14]

Species[link]

The animals most frequently involved in bird strikes are large birds with big populations, particularly geese and gulls in the United States. In parts of the US, Canada Geese and migratory Snow Geese populations have risen significantly while feral Canada Geese and Greylag Geese have increased in parts of Europe increasing the risk of these large birds to aircraft.^[15] In other parts of the world, large birds of prey such as Gyps vultures and Milvus kites are often involved.^[4] In the US reported strikes are divided between waterfowl (32%), gulls (28%), and raptors (17%) (Data from the BSC USA).^{[citation needed]} The Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Laboratory has identified turkey vultures as the most damaging birds, followed by Canada geese and white pelicans,^[16] all very large birds. In terms of frequency, the laboratory most commonly finds Mourning Doves and Horned Larks involved in the strike.^[16]

The largest numbers of strikes happen during the spring and fall migrations. Bird strikes above 500 feet (150 m) altitude are about 7 times more common at night than during the day during the bird migration season.^[17]

Large land-bound animals, such as deer, can also be a problem to aircraft during take off and landing, and over 650 civil aircraft collisions with deer were reported in the U.S. between 1990 and 2004.

An animal hazard reported from London Stansted Airport in England is rabbits: they get run over by ground vehicles and planes, and they pass large amounts of droppings, which attract mice, which attract owls, which become another birdstrike hazard.^[18]

Countermeasures[link]

There are three approaches to reduce the effect of bird strikes. The vehicles can be designed to be more bird resistant, the birds can be moved out of the way of the vehicle, or the vehicle can be moved out of the way of the birds.

Vehicle design[link]

Most large commercial jet engines include design features that ensure they can shut-down after "ingesting" a bird weighing up to 1.8 kg (4 lb). The engine does not have to survive the ingestion, just be safely shut down. This is a 'stand alone' requirement, i.e., the engine, not the aircraft, must pass the test. Multiple strikes (from hitting a bird flock) on twin engine jet aircraft are very serious events because they can disable multiple aircraft systems, requiring emergency action to land the aircraft, as in the January 15, 2009, forced ditching of US Airways Flight 1549.

Modern jet aircraft structures must be able to withstand one 1.8 kg (4 lb) collision; the empennage (tail) must withstand one 3.6 kg (8 lb) bird collision. Cockpit windows on jet aircraft must be able to withstand one 1.8 kg (4 lb) bird collision without yielding or spalling.

At first, bird strike testing by manufacturers involved firing a bird carcass from a gas cannon and sabot system into the tested unit. The carcass was soon replaced with suitable density blocks, often gelatin, to ease testing. Currently testing is mainly conducted with computer simulation, although final testing usually involves some physical experiments (see birdstrike simulator).

Bird management[link]

To reduce birdstrikes on takeoff and landing, airports engage in bird management and control. There is no single solution that works for all situations. Birds have been noted for their adaptability and control methods may not remain effective for long.^[19] Management techniques include changes to habitat around the airport to reduce its attractiveness to birds.^[16] Vegetation which produces seeds, grasses which are favored by geese,^[20] and manmade food, a favorite of gulls, all should be removed from the airport area. Trees and tall structures which serve as roosts at night for flocking birds or perches should be removed or modified to discourage bird use.^[21]

Other approaches try to scare away the birds using frightening devices, for example sounds, lights, pyrotechnics, radio-controlled airplanes, decoy animals/corpses, lasers, dogs etc.^[21] Firearms are also occasionally employed. A successful approach has been using dogs, particularly Border collies, to scare away birds and wildlife.^[22] Another alternative is bird capture and relocation. Trained falcons are sometimes used to harass the bird population, as for example on John F. Kennedy International Airport.^[16] At Manchester Airport in England the usual type of falcon used for this is a peregrine falcon/lanner falcon hybrid, as its flight range covers the airport without straying too far. An airport in New Zealand uses electrified mats to reduce the number of worms that attracted large numbers of sea gulls.^[16]

Flight path[link]

Pilots have very little training in wildlife avoidance nor is training required by any regulatory agency. However, they should not takeoff or land in the presence of wildlife, avoid migratory routes,^[23] wildlife reserves, estuaries and other sites where birds may congregate. When operating in the presence of bird flocks, pilots should seek to climb above 3,000 feet (910 m) as rapidly as possible as most birdstrikes occur below 3,000 feet (910 m). Additionally pilots should slow their aircraft when confronted with birds. The energy that must be dissipated in the collision is approximately the relative kinetic energy (Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): E_{k} ) of the bird, defined by the equation Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): E_{k} = \frac{1}{2} m v^{2}

where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): m
is the mass and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): v
is the relative velocity (the difference of the velocities of the bird and the plane if they are flying in the same direction and the sum if they are flying towards each other). Therefore the speed of the aircraft is much more important than the size of the bird when it comes to reducing energy transfer in a collision.  The same can be said for jet engines: the slower the rotation of the engine, the less energy which will be imparted onto the engine at collision.

The body density of the bird is also a parameter that influences the amount of damage caused.^[24]

The US Military Aviation Hazard Advisory System uses a Bird Avoidance Model^[25] based on data from the Smithsonian Institution, historical patterns of bird strikes and radar tracking of bird activity.^[16] This model has been extremely successful. Prior to flight USAF pilots check for bird activity on their proposed low level route or bombing range. If bird activity is forecast to be high, the route is changed to one of lower threat. In the first year this BAM model was required as a preflight tool, the USAF Air Combat Command experienced a 70% drop in birdstrikes to its mission aircraft.

TNO, a Dutch R&D Institute, has developed the successful ROBIN (Radar Observation of Bird Intensity) for the Royal Netherlands Airforce. ROBIN is a near real-time monitoring system for flight movements of birds. ROBIN identifies flocks of birds within the signals of large radar systems. This information is used to give Air Force pilots warning during landing and take-off. Years of observation of bird migration with ROBIN have also provided a better insight into bird migration behaviour, which has had an influence on averting collisions with birds, and therefore on flight safety. Since the implementation of the ROBIN system at the Royal Netherlands Airforce the number of collisions between birds and aircraft in the vicinity of military airbases has decreased by more than 50%.

There are no civil aviation counterparts to the above military strategies. Some experimentation with small portable radar units has taken place at some airports. However, no standard has been adopted for radar warning nor has any governmental policy regarding warnings been implemented.

Incidents[link]

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates the problem costs US aviation 400 million dollars annually and has resulted in over 200 worldwide deaths since 1988.^[26] In the United Kingdom, the Central Science Laboratory estimates^[6] that, worldwide, the cost of birdstrikes to airlines is around US$1.2 billion annually. This cost includes direct repair cost and lost revenue opportunities while the damaged aircraft is out of service. Estimating that 80% of bird strikes are unreported, there were 4,300 bird strikes listed by the United States Air Force and 5,900 by US civil aircraft in 2003.

The first reported bird strike was by Orville Wright in 1905; according to the Wright Brothers' diaries Orville … flew 4,751 meters in 4 minutes 45 seconds, four complete circles. Twice passed over fence into Beard's cornfield. Chased flock of birds for two rounds and killed one which fell on top of the upper surface and after a time fell off when swinging a sharp curve.^[4]

In 1911 French pilot Eugene Gilbert encountered an angry mother eagle over the Pyrenees Mountains enroute from Paris to Madrid during the great aviation race held that year between those two cities. Gilbert, flying an open-cockpit Bleriot XI, was able to ward off the large bird by firing pistol shots at her but not killing her.^[27]

The first recorded bird strike fatality was reported in 1912 when aero-pioneer Cal Rodgers collided with a gull which became jammed in his aircraft control cables. He crashed at Long Beach, California, was pinned under the wreckage and drowned.^[3][28]

The greatest loss of life directly linked to a bird strike was on October 4, 1960, when Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra flying from Boston, flew through a flock of common starlings during take off, damaging all four engines. The aircraft crashed into Boston harbor shortly after take-off, with 62 fatalities out of 72 passengers. Subsequently, minimum bird ingestion standards for jet engines were developed by the FAA.

NASA astronaut Theodore Freeman was killed when a goose shattered the plexiglass cockpit canopy of his Northrop T-38 Talon, resulting in shards being ingested by the engines, leading to a fatal crash.^{[citation needed]}

In 1988 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 604 sucked pigeons into both engines during take-off and then crashed, killing 35 passengers.

A Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk after a collision with a Common Crane (bird), and resulting failure of the windshield.

The same UH-60, as seen from the inside.

In 1995, a Dassault Falcon 20 crashed at a Paris airport during an emergency landing attempt after sucking lapwings into an engine, which caused an engine failure and a fire in the airplane's fuselage; all 10 people on board were killed.^[29]

On September 22, 1995, a U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft (Callsign Yukla 27, serial number 77-0354), crashed shortly after take off from Elmendorf AFB. The aircraft lost power in both port side engines after these engines ingested several Canada Geese during takeoff. It crashed about two miles (3 km) from the runway, killing all 24 crew members on board.^[30]

On November 28, 2004, the nose landing gear of KLM Flight 1673, a Boeing 737-400, struck a bird during takeoff at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. The incident was reported to air traffic control, the landing gear was raised normally and the flight continued normally to its destination. Upon touching down at Barcelona International Airport, the aircraft started deviating to the left of the runway centreline. The crew applied right rudder, braking and the nose wheel steering tiller but could not keep the aircraft on the runway. After it veered off the paved surface of the runway at about 100 knots, the jet went through an area of soft sand. The nose landing gear leg collapsed and the left main landing gear leg detached from its fittings shortly before the aircraft came to a stop perched over the edge of a drainage canal. All 140 passengers and six crew evacuated safely, but the aircraft itself had to be written off. The cause was discovered to be a broken cable in the nose wheel steering system caused by the bird collision. Contributing to the snapped cable was the improper application of grease during routine maintenance which led to severe wear of the cable.^[31]

The Space Shuttle Discovery also hit a bird (a vulture) during the launch of STS-114 on July 26, 2005, although the collision occurred soon after lift-off and at low speed, with no obvious damage to the shuttle.^[32]

On November 10, 2008, Ryanair Flight 4102 from Frankfurt to Rome made an emergency landing at Ciampino Airport after multiple bird strikes caused both engines to fail. After touchdown, the left main landing gear collapsed, and the aircraft briefly veered off the runway. Passengers and crew were evacuated through the starboard emergency exits.^[33]

On January 4, 2009, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter hit a Red-tailed Hawk in Louisiana. The hawk hit the helicopter just above the windscreen. The impact forced the activation of the engine fire supression control handles, retarding the throttles and causing the engines to lose power. Eight of the nine persons on board died in the subsequent crash; the survivor, a passenger, was seriously injured.^[34]

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte/Douglas International Airport ditched into the Hudson River after experiencing a loss of both turbines. It is suspected that the engine failure was caused by running into a flock of geese at an altitude of about 975 m (3,200 feet), shortly after takeoff. All 150 passengers and 5 crew members were safely evacuated after a successful water landing.^[35] On May 28, 2010, the NTSB published its final report into the accident.^[36]

Bug strike[link]

Flying insect strikes, like bird strikes, have been encountered by pilots since aircraft were invented. In 1911, as a young aviator flying a mile high and not wearing goggles, future United States Air Force general Henry H. Arnold nearly lost control of his Wright Model B after a bug flew into his eye, causing him to be distracted.

In 1986 a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress on a low-level training mission entered a swarm of locusts. The insects' impacts on the aircraft's windscreens rendered the crew unable to see, forcing them to abort the mission and fly using the aircraft's instruments alone. The aircraft eventually landed safely.^[37] In 2010 the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) issued a warning to pilots about the potential dangers of flying through a locust swarm. CASA warned that the insects could cause loss of engine power and loss of visibility; and blocking of an aircraft's pitot tubes, causing inaccurate airspeed readings.^[38][39]

See also[link]

	Aviation portal
	Animals portal

• Birdstrike simulator
• Foreign object damage
• AEDC Ballistic Range S-3

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bird strike

• A photo gallery of the bird strike conseguence between aircraft and birds
• International Bird Strike Committee
• Bird Strike Committee Canada
• BSC USA
• http://wildlife-mitigation.tc.faa.gov/public_html/index.html
• http://wildlife.pr.erau.edu/FAADatabase.htm
• Aviation Hazard Advisory System
• Australian Aviation Wildlife Hazard Group
• The FlySafe Bird Avoidance Model (FlySafe-BAM)
• List of significant bird strikes

Hannes Arch
Born	(1967-09-22) September 22, 1967 (age 44)
Nationality	Austria
Racing career
First race	2007
Best position	1st (2008)
Aircraft	Zivko Edge 540
Website
hannesarch.com

Hannes Arch (born September 22, 1967) is an Austrian pilot, who competed in the 2007 Red Bull Air Race World Series season following a round of qualification held in Phoenix, Arizona, United States during October 2006.^[1] He joins 13 other pilots, 2 of them also receiving entry after the Arizona qualifying. Arch won the World Championship in the 2008 season.^[2]

Hannes Arch at the Red Bull Air Race World Series
Year	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Points	Wins	Rank
2007	DNQ	4th	10th	11th	CAN	12th	11th	10th	12th	10th	CAN	9th	3	0	10th
2008	2nd	4th	3rd	CAN	2nd	3rd	1st	1st	CAN	3rd			61	2	1st
2009	1st	3rd	2nd	4th	2nd	4th							60	1	2nd
2010	11th	1st	1st	1st	4th	1st	CAN	POR					60	4	2nd

Legend:

• CAN: Cancelled
• DNP: Did not participate
• DNQ: Did not qualify
• DNS: Did not show
• DQ: Disqualified
• NC: Not classified

See also[link]

• Competition aerobatics

References[link]

External links[link]

• Air-races.com profile
• Aerobatics website with Hannes Arch videos
• Red Bull Air Race World Series official website

v t e Red Bull Air Race World Championship pilots Current pilots (2010)  Hannes Arch •  Péter Besenyei •  Paul Bonhomme •  Kirby Chambliss •  Matthias Dolderer •  Michael Goulian •  Matt Hall •  Nicolas Ivanoff •  Adilson Kindlemann •  Nigel Lamb •  Pete McLeod •  Yoshihide Muroya •  Sergey Rakhmanin •  Martin Šonka Former pilots  Glen Dell •  Steve Jones •  Jurgis Kairys •  Alejandro Maclean •  Mike Mangold •  David Martin •  Klaus Schrodt •  Frank Versteegh

This air sports-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that in 2007 became Thomas Cook Group.

Early days[link]

Thomas Cook was born to John and Elizabeth Cook, who lived at 9 Quick Close in the village of Melbourne, Derbyshire.^[1] The couple's first child, he was named after Elizabeth's father, Thomas Perkins. John Cook died when Thomas was three years old, and his mother remarried later that same year.

At the age of 10, Cook started working as an assistant to a local market gardener for a wage of six pence a week. At the age of 14, he secured an apprenticeship with John Pegg, and spent five years as a cabinet maker.^[1]

He was brought up as a strict Baptist, and joined his local Temperance Society. In February 1826, Cook became a preacher, and toured the region as a village evangelist, distributing pamphlets, and occasionally working as a cabinet maker to earn money.^[1] After working as a part-time publisher of Baptist and Temperance pamphlets, he became a Baptist minister in 1828.

In 1832, Cook moved to Adam and Eve Street in Market Harborough. Influenced by the local Baptist minister Francis Beardsall, he took the temperance pledge on New Year's Day in 1833. As a part of the temperance movement, he organized meetings and held anti-liquor processions.^[1]

On 3 March 1833, Cook married Marianne Mason. John Mason Cook, their only son, was born on 13 January 1834 .^[1]

The first-ever excursions[link]

Panels from the Thomas Cook Building in Leicester, displaying excursions offered by Thomas Cook

Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while waiting for the stagecoach on the London Road at Kibworth. With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook arranged for the rail company to charge one shilling per person that included rail tickets and food for this train journey. Cook was paid a share of the fares actually charged to the passengers, as the railway tickets, being legal contracts between company and passenger, could not have been issued at his own price. This was the first privately chartered excursion train to be advertised to the general public; Cook himself acknowledging that there had been previous, unadvertised, private excursion trains.^[2] During the following three summers he planned and conducted outings for temperance societies and Sunday-school children. In 1844 the Midland Counties Railway Company agreed to make a permanent arrangement with him provided he found the passengers. This success led him to start his own business running rail excursions for pleasure, taking a percentage of the railway tickets.

Leicester railway station - this was built between 1892 and 1894 to replace, largely on the same site, Campbell Street station, the origin for many of Cook's early tours.

On 4 August 1845 he arranged accommodation for a party to travel from Leicester to Liverpool. In 1846, he took 350 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland, however his lack of commercial ability led him to bankruptcy. He persisted and found success when he claimed that he arranged for over 165,000 people to attend the Great Exhibition in London. Four years later, he planned his first excursion abroad, when he took a group from Leicester to Calais to coincide with the Paris Exhibition. The following year he started his 'grand circular tours' of Europe. During the 1860s he took parties to Switzerland, Italy, Egypt and United States. Cook established 'inclusive independent travel', whereby the traveller went independently but his agency charged for travel, food and accommodation for a fixed period over any chosen route. Such was his success that the Scottish railway companies withdrew their support between 1862 and 1863 to try the excursion business for themselves.

With John A Mason Cook, he formed a partnership and renamed the travel agency as Thomas Cook and Son. They acquired business premises on Fleet Street, London. By this time, Cook had stopped personal tours and became an agent for foreign or domestic travel. The office also contained a shop which sold essential travel accessories including guide books, luggage, telescopes and footwear. Thomas saw his venture as both religious and social service; his son provided the commercial expertise that allowed the company to expand. In accordance with his beliefs, he and his wife also ran a small temperance hotel above the office. Their business model was refined by the introduction of the 'hotel coupon' in 1866. Detachable coupons in a counterfoil book were issued to the traveller. These were valid for either a restaurant meal or an overnight hotel stay provided they were on Cook's list.

In 1865, the agency organised tours of the United States, picking up passengers from several departure points. John Mason Cook led the excursion which included tours of several Civil War battlefields. A brief but bitter partnership was formed with an American businessman in 1871 called Cook, Son and Jenkins; however after an acrimonious split the agency reverted back to its original name. A round the world tour started in 1872, which for 200 guineas, included a steamship across the Atlantic, a stage coach across America, a paddle steamer to Japan, and an overland journey across China and India, lasting 222 days.

In 1874, Thomas Cook introduced 'circular notes', a product that later became better known by American Express's brand, 'traveller's cheques'.^[3]

Conflicts of interest between father and son were resolved when the son persuaded his father, Thomas Cook, to retire in 1879. He moved back to Leicestershire and lived quietly until his death. The firm's growth was consolidated by John Mason Cook and his two sons, especially by its involvement with military transport and postal services for Britain and Egypt during the 1880s when Cook began organising tours to the Middle East. By 1888, the company had established offices around the world, including three in Australia and one in Auckland, New Zealand, and in 1890, the company sold over 3.25 million tickets.^[4] John Mason Cook promoted, and even led, excursions to, for example, the Middle East where he was described as "the second-greatest man in Egypt".^[4] However, while arranging for the German Emperor Wilhelm II to visit Palestine in 1898, he contracted dysentery and died the following year.

Statue of Thomas Cook near Leicester railway station.

Non-family ownership[link]

John Mason Cook's sons, Frank Henry, Thomas Albert and Ernest Edward, were not nearly as successful as their father and grandfather at running the business. Despite opening a new headquarters in Berkeley Square, London in 1926, ownership of Thomas Cook and Son only remained with the family until 1928, when it was sold to the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. During the 1930s the travel agency changed its focus from tours to Egypt and Palestine. Indeed the company was a principal employer in Egypt, involved in shipping, transport and touring operations. After the outbreak of World War II the Paris headquarters of the Wagons-Lits company was seized by the occupying forces, and the British assets requisitioned by the British government. In 1941, the centenary of the company, Thomas Cook & Son Ltd. was sold to the four major railway companies with the aim of expanding it further.

The company was nationalised in 1948 as part of the British Transport Commission. In the early 1950s the company began promoting 'foreign holidays' (particularly Italy, Spain and Switzerland) by showing information films at town halls throughout Britain. However they did not sell cheap package holidays, which included transport and accommodation, a decision costly to the company. The company went further into decline, and was rescued by a consortium of Trust House Forte, Midland Bank and the Automobile Association that bought the company from the British Government on 26 May 1972.^[5] Midland Bank acquired sole control in 1977. U.S. banking laws prohibited any national banks from owning travel agencies, so the U.S. operations were sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 1975.

After restructuring the company and re-entering the traveller's cheque business the company prospered again. During the 1980s Thomas Cook had its most visible business presence in the U.S., including robust travellers cheque sales to regional U.S. banks. The company had enough business critical mass to set up a computer centre near Princeton, New Jersey. Robert Gaffney and Samuel Malek were two of the notable decision-makers in that era. Robert Maxwell bought substantial holdings in the company in 1988. He was expected to sell his holdings quickly as he was a publisher rather than a travel agent. However, when Crimson/Heritage purchased the U.S. division of Thomas Cook for US$1.3 billion in 1989,^[6] he still maintained a substantial interest in the company until his death.

In June 1992, following the acquisition of Midland Bank by HSBC, Thomas Cook was sold to the German bank Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) and the charter airline LTU Group for £200 million.

In September 1994 American Express (Amex) bought the corporate travel interests of Thomas Cook Travel Inc. which represented about ten percent of the British company's total revenue. However Amex was not able to buy the venerable Thomas Cook name; an American Express affiliate, Cook Travel Inc. had been operating under that name since 1991 in the United States.

Due to contractual difficulties LTU Group sold its 10% shares to WestLB in May 1995. During 1996 the company bought short-haul operator Sunworld and European city-breaks tour group Time Off. Within three years the company had combined Sunworld, Sunset, Inspirations, Flying Colours and Caledonian Airways into the JMC (for John Mason Cook) brand.

Thomas Cook logo, 1999

A modern Thomas Cook travel agency in Leeds.

On 2 February 1999 the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook into a holding company owned by West LB, Carlson Inc and Preussag Aktiengesellschaft ("Preussag").^[7] However, in mid-2000 Preussag acquired Thomas Cook's rival Thomson Travel and was forced to sell its majority 50.1% stake in Thomas Cook by regulatory authorities.

In March 2001 the Financial Services division was sold to Travelex, who retained the right to use the Thomas Cook brand on Traveller's Cheques for 5 years. In 2002 Thomas Cook was acquired by the German company C&N Touristic AG, which later changed its name to Thomas Cook AG. The group is jointly owned by Lufthansa and Karstadt.

In 2007 Thomas Cook announced a merger with competitor MyTravel, with the new group to be called Thomas Cook Group plc and listed on the London Stock Exchange. The transaction was completed in June 2007 following competition authority clearance. The new group was 51% owned by Arcandor (new name of Karstadt).

Thomas Cook made a controversial business move in 2008, buying out Canadian travel wholesaler IFS Voyages (including Fun Sun Vacations, Intair, Exotik Tours, Boomerang Tours, etc.).

In March 2011 Thomas Cook acquired the UK travel insurance and airport parking provider Essential Travel and launched Thomas Cook Essentials. This was followed by a merger with The Co-operative Travel group on 8 October 2011 to create the UK's largest retail travel network.

At the 2011 AGM Thomas Cook shareholders mounted a "revolt" over executive bonuses, with only 53.2 percent voting in favour of the remuneration report.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Cook

• Thomas Cook Biography
• Article about Thomas Cook