It’s a government issue specifically in this case because the government operates a mandatory fund that travel agencies pay into which covers the cost of repatriation efforts if the travel agency collapses, and in the bigger picture because having thousands of citizens stranded abroad with potentially no financial means to repatriate themselves is, y’know, bad.

https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Consumers/About-ATOL/

> ATOL (which stands for Air Travel Organiser’s Licence) is a UK financial protection scheme and it protects most air package holidays sold by travel businesses that are based in the UK. The scheme also applies to some flight bookings, usually those where you book flights (including UK domestic flights) but do not receive your tickets immediately.

> ATOL was first introduced in 1973, as the popularity of overseas holidays grew. After a number of high profile travel business failures left people stranded overseas the UK Government realised consumers required protection when their travel providers fell into difficulties. ATOL currently protects around 20 million holidaymakers and travellers each year.

> If a travel business with an ATOL ceases trading, the ATOL scheme protects consumers who had booked holidays with the firm. It will support consumers currently abroad and provide financial reimbursement for the cost of replacing parts of an ATOL protected package.

It's a mandatory insurance program run by the UK government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Travel_Organisers'_Licensi...

Insured or not, most other countries will find a way to bring you back into your country of residence, usually by securing you a seat that's not available to the general public (like a jump or a stewardess seat).

I'm just not entirely sure how they would go about doing it in such a large scale if no such insurances were in place.

On one hand I agree that it shouldn't be because government should require that both, sufficient reserves exist to deliver on contracts to consumers, and that consumers always have the first priority on any kind of claims against a bankrupt company. If, as a professional firm or even investor, you invested in a company; it should be considered part of your professional duty and due diligence that you make smart decisions and suffer the consequences for your actions ... not naive consumers.

On the other hand though, in the absence of and the externalization of the costs by not holding corporations and professionals responsible for their actions, it can be argued that it falls into the common good scope of government to provide such emergency services that are generalizable across the population and from which everyone will equally benefit and therefore can also not be extracted.

There is also an argument to be made though that this has been known and Thomas Cook has been on the skids for years now, even though a layperson really can't be expected to know that when they dish out their life savings to book family vacation of a lifetime.

Again, there reckless corporations need to be held to the fire on these matters, which is EVEN MORE the responsibility of government ... the core responsibility at that ... so that it doesn't have to do these types of things because the reserves existed that would allow emergency travel or relocation or whatever is needed to meet contractual obligations.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth too, but at least that's taxpayer money going directly back to the taxpayer.

Even better: it's not actually taxpayer money. The repatriation is funded by a mandatory £2.50 surcharge on all package holiday bookings that's been in place since 1973. https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Consumers/About-ATOL/

Tomato, tomato. At least it was put to good use.

Repatriation is paid for by the travel industry, the government have nothing to do with it

Through which mechanism?