According to Thomas Cook Group, their annual profit will scale lower than their expectations, courtesy the adverse effect on late holiday bookings caused by the sudden surge in temperature weather all over Europe.
The British travel company usually makes most of its profit during the summer, when its northern European customers (especially those from Scandinavia, Britain, and Germany) go on holiday to southern European destinations like Greece, Spain, Turkey and of course, Cyprus.
The sudden surge in weather all over northern Europe, however, has led to travelers getting discouraged to make their booking, which has visibly affected late bookings. According to Thomas Cook, this new development will make the full-year underlying operating profit end up on the lower end of market expectations.
Thomas Cook, which runs an airline as well as a tour operator business, said in its third quarter statement that a strong airline performance in Germany helped to offset the impact of a warm summer. However, the “sustained period of hot weather” during the June-July period caused a delay in customer bookings in the tour operator, which in turn has restricted their ability make their intended profits in the late bookings market.
This news comes in contrast to Thomas Cook’s earlier statements made in May, which stated how the travel company was on its way to meet analysts’ expectations of a 7 percent rise in its post-operating profit to 352 million pounds ($462.04 million) for the 12 months to Sept. 30, on a constant currency basis.